"Ingenium est Fateri per quos profeceris":
Francis Daniel Pastorius' Young Country Clerk's Collection
and Anglo-American Legal Literature, 1682-1716
Alfred L. Brophy
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
This article appeared in revised form in the 3 University of Chicago Law School Roundtable 637742 (1996).
In the rare book room of the University of Pennsylvania's Van Pelt library are two
manuscript volumes by Francis Daniel Pastorius. The larger one, his Bee Hive, collects
Pastorius' thoughts on subjects as diverse as religion, slavery, usury, and horticulture. The Bee
Hive is a source of knowledge about Pastorius' wide-ranging interests and about ideas in the
American colonies in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.1 The smaller volume,
The Young Country Clerk's Collection, written mostly between 1698 and 1710, consists largely
of legal forms that aided in drawing contracts, land transactions, wills, and pleadings. The
Young Country Clerk's Collection2 is the oldest extant treatise on law written in British North
America and it has the ability to illuminate the nature of the law in early America in a way that
few other sources do.
1
Francis Daniel Pastorius, The Bee Hive, Mss. Am. 1, Special Collections, Van Pelt Library,
University of Pennsylvania.
2
See Francis Daniel Pastorius, Young Country Clerk's Collection, Ms. Am. 63, Special
Collections, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania [hereafter YCCC]. See also Marianne
S. Wokeck, 1 Biographical Dictionary of Pennsylvania Legislators (Craig W. Horle & Marianne
S. Wokeck eds. 1991) 586-90 (mentioning existence of Young Country Clerk's Collection);
Michael Learned, Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius 258 & plate following 274 (1908) (briefly
describing Collection).
1
Massachusetts published its legal code in 1648, three years before Pastorius was born;
William Penn published a volume dealing with English constitutional ideas, The Excellent
Priviledge of Liberty and Property, in Philadelphia in 1687,3 and dozens of volumes of
manuscript records of early Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia
courts antedate Pastorius' volume.4 Nevertheless, no one in America wrote a practical legal
treatise before Pastorius.5 This essay examines the treatise and Pastorius' other writings to see
3
See The Book of the General Lawes and Liberties . . . [of] Massachusetts . . . (Cambridge,
1648) Evans 28; William Penn The Excellent Priviledge of Liberty and Property (Philadelphia,
1687) Evans 433. See also John Cotton, An Abstract of the Laws and Government (London,
1655); An Abstract or Abridgment of the Laws Made and Past by William Penn . . .
(Philadelphia, 1701) Evans 1018; The Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania Collected into One
Volume (Philadelphia, 1714) Evans 1712. For discussion of the extent of
legal literature in early America, see Morris L. Cohen, Legal Literature in Early Massachusetts, in
Law in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630-1800 243-72 (Daniel R. Coquillette ed. 1984); Herbert A.
Johnson, Imported Eighteenth Century Law Treatises in American Libraries, 1700-1799 (1978);
W. Hamilton Bryson, Census of Virginia Law Books (1982); Edwin C. Surrency, The
Beginnings of American Legal Literature, 31 J. Am. Legal Hist. 207-20 (1987).
4
The wealth of surviving records, from minute books to records of trials, to compilations of
statutes, demonstrate well-developed legal knowledge. See, e.g., The Trials of Quakers for
Several Great Misdemeanors (Philadelphia, 1693); Nicholas Bayard, An Account of the illegal
prosecution and tryal of Coll. of Nicholas Bayard (New York, 1702) Evans 1038; Abstract of
Laws, supra note 3; The Laws of Jamaica (London, 1683) Wing J124. For a discussion of the
wealth of legal records and citations to further bibliographies of the records, see David H.
Flaherty, An Introduction to Early American Legal History, in Essays in the History of Early
American Law 3-38 (David H. Flaherty ed. 1969).
5
The earliest "practical" legal treatise--as distinguished from treatises dealing with
constitutional issues or compilations of statutory laws--printed in British North America appears
to be a copy of John Hill's Young Secretaries Guide (London 1685), printed in Boston in 1708. It
contained a short appendix detailing Massachusetts law on wills. See Young Secretaries Guide
(Boston, 1708) Evans 39,476. Other early treatises included the Secretaries Guide (New York,
1714) Evans 1668 and Conductor Generalis (Philadelphia, 1722) Evans 2327, both printed by
William Bradford. None of the early American treatises employed Pastorius' creativity in
compiling useful precedents from several English treatises nor were they tailored as closely to
American law as was Pastorius' treatise.
Pastorius also wrote one of the first medical treatises in British North America. See John
2
how he viewed the law. In particular, it asks what legal issues were important to him and what
sources he turned to in dealing with legal issues. This article connects Pastorius’ thoughts on law
with his practical legal writings to show the relationship of religious belief to formal law and
then the differences in the substantive law of Pennsylvania and England.
I
Legal History of Early America: The Debate on English Origins
Historians of seventeenth-century English and American law have been puzzled by its
nature. Answers to even relatively simple questions of how English civil law worked outside of
the great royal courts of Kings Bench, Chancery and Common Pleas, have been by-passed in
favor of examination of the criminal law.6 We are, finally, getting some answers about who
used the courts and what they sued over. But the substantive and procedural law of post-
David Weaver, Francis Daniel Pastorius: Life in Germany 21 n.3 (Ph.D. diss. Univ. California,
Davis, 1985). His "Artzney und Kunst" includes a several hundred page treatise, "Medicus
Dilectus," which catalogs various diseases. Pastorius Coll, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
[hereafter, HSP]. Pastorius also compiled a manuscript on agriculture, "The Monthly Monitor,
briefly Showing When our works ought to be done in Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards, Fields,
Meadows and Woods." Pastorius Coll., HSP. Like Pastorius' Young Country Clerk's Collection,
his medical and agriculture manuscripts draw upon English books. See Weaver, supra, at 21 n.
3.
6
There exist such excellent works on English criminal law and prosecution in the
seventeenth century as John Bettie, Crime and Courts in England, 1660-1800, E.P. Thompson,
Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (1977), and Craig W. Horle, Quakers and the
English Criminal Justice System, 1660-1688 (1988). But little is known about English local law
of a non-criminal nature in the seventeenth century. Indeed, much of what we know comes from
studies of American law that refer tangentially to English law. See, e.g., David Konig, Puritan
Law and Society: Essex County Massachusetts (1977).
3
Reformation England remains under-explored. And the law in early America has received,
consequently, little attention until recently. One is left wondering, how similar was law in the
marchlands of European civilization in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Charleston within
the first one hundred years of settlement to that of the British Isles? And how does one account
for the differences?
To some extent, the questions about early American law mirror questions raised about
other elements of American settlement. How similar were religion, culture, and politics in
England and America? Was there anything distinctly American about the settlers as early as the
seventeenth century, or were they merely replicating European culture and values in the new
land?7 Many have responded with varying answers. Scholars of the middle Atlantic colonies in
particular have discussed the similarity of middle Atlantic culture to that of Britain. They have
found in religious practice and family life striking similarities to European culture, leading one
historian to comment that "much of the British North American culture was familiarly European,
traditional, even conservative."8
Those few who have addressed the relationship of British and early American law in
particular have offered diverse answers. Julius Goebel, one of the first serious commentators on
seventeenth-century American law, suggested that the law of the Plymouth settlement in
7
See, e.g., Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America 35-66 (1952); David Hall, Religion
and Society: Problems and Reconsiderations, in Colonial British America: Essays in the New
History of the Early Modern Era 317, 320-21 (1984).
8
Bernard Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America 127 (1986). See Barry Levy,
Quakers and the American Family (1988) (concluding that Quakers maintained their inheritance
and family patterns in America); Jon Butler, The American Denominational Order, Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society (1977) (concluding that middle Atlantic religion was
strikingly similar in organization to English church structure).
4
Massachusetts was similar to the law applied in English county and manor courts. Goebel also
found that the religious beliefs of the Plymouth settlers motivated some changes, including a
penchant for written codes, derived from their "insistence upon a literal use of the Book and an
irrefragable confidence in the written word."9 George Haskins, writing in Law and Authority in
Early Massachusetts found a similar result, mixing English ideas with Puritan religious beliefs.10
A host of more recent writers, whose concerns have not been quite as strictly legal as Goebel and
Haskins, have argued that settlers brought with them a great deal of intellectual baggage,
including English legal ideas. Sumner Chilton Powell's Pulitzer-Prize winning Puritan Village
showed that the settlers of Sudbury Massachusetts copied the land distribution and farming
practices from their home villages in England as well as their ideas about town government.11
David Grayson Allen's In English Ways demonstrates that the land-distribution practices in
Massachusetts were largely determined by the practices in the settlers' homelands.12 It seems that
a consensus has been building that the fruit falls close to the tree. But so little work concerning
the actual substantive law has been undertaken that it remains difficult to make firm judgments.
Most recently, Richard Ross has suggested, using the descriptive phrase "memory jurisprudence,"
9
Julius Goebel, King's Law and Local Custom in Seventeenth Century New England, 31
Colum. L. Rev. 416, 432 (1931).
10
See George L. Haskins, Law and Authority in Early Massachusetts: A Study in Tradition
and Design 141-62 (1960).
11
See Sumner Chilton Powell, Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town
(1963).
12
See David G. Allen, In English Ways (1983) (demonstrating that New England settlers
distributed property in the same ways that they had in England).
5
that much of the law of early America was what the colonists remembered of European
practices.13
Determining how settlers differed from their counterparts in Europe is important because
it tells how settlement occurs and, in law in particular, details the ways in which the settlers were
able to reform the law according to their own desires. Legal historians constantly debate the role
of social forces in shaping law. The most popular belief, exemplified by the works of such
people as Willard Hurst and Lawrence Friedman, is that law is largely a creation of the
surrounding social conditions. Based on such work, one might expect a great deal of change in
the law in the new world, where the surrounding conditions were so different from England and
where the colonists had the power to change the law. Professor Horwitz's stunningly influential
Transformation of American Law, for instance, argues that early American law was a creation of
a society not so much concerned with commercial relations as with fairness. In the nineteenth
century, Horwitz demonstrates, the precommercial and antidevelopmental law was transformed
by the judiciary in response to changing attitudes towards economic development.14
Some vigorously contest the assertion that law follows society, however. Professor Alan
Watson has been the most persistent advocate of the theory that law develops autonomously from
social concerns. In his provocative work Slave Law in the Americas Watson posited that "the
13
Richard J. Ross, The Legal Past of Early New England, 50 William & Mary Q. 28, 36-38
(1993).
14
See, e.g., Lawrence Friedman, A History of American Law 37 (2nd ed. 1985) (concluding
that "colonial legal experience was richly diverse from the outset, because conditions were so
varied in the colonies. . . . This was, at least, the American experience."); James Williard Hurst,
Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States (1954) (examing
ways that people shaped their legal environment); Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of
American Law, 1780-1860 (1977).
6
lesson of history is that over most of the field of law and especially of private law . . . rulers need
have no interest in determining what the rules of law are or should be." Because of disinterest
among the rulers, Watson concluded, legal growth has been "haphazard, slow, unresponsive to
social and economic conditions, . . . and unsystematic." According to Watson, legal tradition is
of primary importance in determining the law in newly settled areas.15 Watson's thesis, which he
has expounded in a series of books spanning several millennia of legal development, has
attracted substantial attention. The debate over the relative importance of social factors and legal
tradition remains strong, as well as the debate over the extent to which early American law was
similar to or different from English law.16
--Pastorius' Young Country Clerk's Collection is particularly illuminating because it allows
a detailed examination of the ways that Pennsylvania law was similar to that of England and how
it differed. The book, a collection of legal forms, offers a rare snapshot photograph of the
substantive and procedural law of early America, because Pastorius set out to write a
comprehensive legal manual for use by lay people. One can, therefore, derive an excellent idea
of what legal forms were needed by early Pennsylvanians. Indeed, there appears to be no other
book containing as large a supply of information on the law of another colony contemporaneous
with Pastorius' Collection. One is particularly fortunate when dealing with Pastorius because his
other writings give a remarkably vivid picture of his goals for the law and of the role of
15
See Alan Watson, Slave Law in the Americas 1, 3 (1989).
16
See, e.g., Alan Watson, Legal Transplants (2nd ed. 1986); The Evolution of the Law
(1985); J.R. Pole, Reflections on American Law and the American Revolution, 50 Wm. & Mary
Q. 123- 59 (1993) (questioning effect of Revolution on law).
7
magistrates and substantive law in achieving justice. Pastorius' writings thus allow one to see the
goals and the way that those goals are achieved, which is almost unique among the writings of
early American lawyers. Together, they create a picture of the aspirations that motivated people
to settle in Pennsylvania and the specific ways in which people used legal forms to help achieve
those aspirations. One can, thereby, gauge the relative influence of desire for change with the
power of legal continuity.
Section II of this essay describes Pastorius' background and training in law in Germany,
which sets the stage for understanding why his religious ideas impelled him to emigrate to
America. Section III then takes up his thoughts about law and religion. It shows that Pastorius'
religious beliefs caused him to emphasize justice and fair treatment of individuals by the legal
system. Those grand, general ideas about justice are related to Pastorius' treatise in Part IV. Part
IV discusses in detail the differences between English, as represented in English legal manuals,
and Pennsylvania law as illustrated by Pastorius' Collection. The final part of this essay draws
specific connections between the Collection and the ideas of law reformers. It shows how
Pastorius' religious ideas related to his efforts to reform and simplify English law for use in
Pennsylvania. Part V draws some conclusions about the relative importance of precedent and
social surroundings on forming American law in the seventeenth century.
II
Francis Daniel Pastorius:
Legal Education in Germany and Pietism
Francis Daniel Pastorius was born in Somerhausen, Germany, in 1651 into the family of
an affluent lawyer, Melchior Adam Pastorius, who later served as Bürgermeister of the city of
8
Windsheim. He was educated in law at a number of universities, first at the University of
Altdorf, where he began studying law in July 1668. In mid- and late-seventeenth-century
Germany, law studies consisted of largely private law courses centered around the Corpus Juris
Civilis and its various parts, including the Institutes, the Digests of the Institutes, the Codex--the
twelve books of Roman imperial law--and the Novella, additions to the law made during
Justinian's reign. In his autobiography, Pastorius records that he studied the Institutes at Altdorf
with Professor Johann Christian Ulrici beginning in September 1670 and with Professor Obrecht
in January 1671.17
Starting in August 1670, he attended the University of Strassburg, where he spent two
years. Although private law was a crucial part of Pastorius' curriculum, he was probably more
intrigued by public law, which was a burgeoning area of study among German legal scholars in
the wake of the Thirty Years War. Such prominent thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza,
17
See Francis Daniel Pastorius, Res Propria, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, folio 12
(autobiographical sketch); Pastorius, Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 229 (describing Pastorius' life in
Germany). On legal education in seventeenth century Germany, see Helmut Coing, Die
Juristische Fakultät und Ihr Lehrprogramm, in 2/1 Handbuch der Quellen und Literatur Der
Neueren Euopäischen Privatrechtsgeschichte 1-53 (Helmut Coing ed. 1977); Weaver, supra note
5, at 245-52.
In addition to his Bee Hive, Pastorius left a wealth of writings. Several of Pastorius'
volumes were published during his life: Umständige Geographie beschreibung der provinze
Pensylvanien (Frankfurt, 1701), translated and reprinted in Albert Cooke Meyers ed., Original
Narratives of Early America (1904); Four Boasting Disputers of this World Briefly Rebuked
(New York, 1697) Evans 811; A New Primmer or Methodical directions to attain the true
spelling, reading & writings of English (New York, 1698) Evans 851. A volume of Pastorius'
poetry has been published recently. See Francis Daniel Pastorius, Deliciae Hortenses
(Christopher E. Scheitzer ed. 1982). Professor Learned has published parts of the Bee Hive. See
Michael Learned, ed., Pastorius' Bee Hive, 1 Americana Germanica (no. 4) 67-110 (1897); 2 id.
(no. 1) 33-86; 2 id. (no. 2), 33-58; 2 id. (no. 4), 65-74 (1898). For a complete bibliography of
Pastorius' writings, see Weaver, supra note 5, at 490-95. I have benefited greatly from Dr.
Weaver’s excellent dissertation on Pastorius’ training and life in Germany.
9
and Samuel Pufendorf were studied closely for their insights into the origin and extent of
political power.18 Pastorius mentions Dr. Johann Böckler, who taught him public law at
Strassburg, as particularly influential in his studies. Böckler's writings and courses included
discussions of the limitations on the emperor's power, Hugo Grotius' ideas of international law,
and Hermann Conring's efforts to re-establish the importance of German legal traditions over
Roman law. After two years at Strassburg, Pastorius visited (and possibly studied at) the
University of Basel during the summer of 1672. He wintered in 1672 and early 1673 in
Windsheim, his boyhood home, then returned to the University of Altdorf again in April 1673,
followed by a stint at the University of Jena starting in July 1673 that lasted until April 1674.19
The city of Jena, an important center of Protestant thought, and the University of Jena in
particular exposed Pastorius to ideas about natural and canon law and probably nurtured
Pastorius' religious views. In the 1670s Jena had several prominent faculty who may have
influenced Pastorius' intellectual development. Georg Adam Struve, a law professor, advocated
empirical study of the law on government; Johann Wilhelm Bair, a theology professor, taught the
theories of Georg Calixit, who emphasized the fundamental aspects of agreement among
denominations of Christians. In 1694, Bair became the first rector of the Pietists' university in
Halle. Finally, Erhart Weigel, a philosophy professor, sought to apply mathematical and
scientific principles to politics. Weigel included Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes in his
18
See John P. Dawson, The Oracles of the Law 234-35 (1968); 2 Roderich von Stintzing,
Geschischte der Deutschen Rechtswissenschaft 32-54 (Munchen & Leipzig, 1884); Franz
Wieacker, Privatrechtsgeschichte Der Neuzeit 301-12 (1969).
19
See Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 229; Johann Heinrich Böckler, 2 Neue Deutsche Biographie
372-73. Böckler is credited with introducing a historical element into German jurisprudence; he
accomplished that in part by editing Grotius' De Iure Bello (Strassburg, 1664). Id.
10
courses.20 It remains unclear how much direct contact Pastorius had with those professors;
whatever their direct influence on him, Pastorius had located himself in a place where innovative
religious and legal ideas were common. Pastorius had extensive contact with one of Weigel's
student, Professor Heinrich Linck. Pastorius studied the Panducts with Linck using Bernardus
Schotanus' textbook. Linck, who had graduated from Jena in 1668, straddled both the academic
and political worlds of late seventeenth-century Germany, publishing extensively on public and
canon law.21
Perhaps the religious and political ideas were taking hold, for shortly after Linck left Jena
in 1674, Pastorius took a break from formal study within universities and visited the Imperial
City of Regensburg to study public law in 1674 and 1675. Fourteen months later, he returned to
Nürnburg in September 1675, to study with and live in the house of Professor Linck, recently
transplanted from Jena. His advanced work at Nürnberg in 1675 and 1676 used textbooks by
20
See Georg Adam Struve, Iurisprudentia Romane Germanica Forensi (Jena, 1694); Weaver,
supra note 5, at 249-50 (discussing Jena). See also 2 Coning, Handbuch, supra note 17, at 546,
548 (discussing Struve's work); Wieacker, supra note 18, at 219 (same). Professor Dawson
discusses the influence of reason on German law generally in the late seventeenth century. See
Dawson, supra note 18, at 212-58.
21
Res Propria, supra note 17, at 11 (mentioning Linck's courses and Schotanus); Bernardus
Schotanus, Examen Juridicum, quo fundamenta Jurisprudentia secundum seriem Digestorum . . .
(Amsterdam, 1643). See also 3 Roderich von Stintzing, Geschischte der Deutschen
Rechtswissenschaft 51-52 (Munchen & Leipzig, 1884) (discussing Schotanus). Pastorius also
mentions studying with Dr. Tillemann and Johann Duerr at Jena. Res Propria, supra note 17, at
11-12. Jena's proximity to Gotha allowed Pastorius to visit the liberal court of Duke Ernest the
Pious, a renowned reformer whose court formed the basis of Veit Ludwig von Seckendorf's
Teutscher Fürstenstaat. See DeElla Victoria Toms, The Intellectual and Literary Background of
Francis Daniel Pastorius, 53-54 (Ph.D. diss. Northwestern Univ. 1953); Weaver, supra note 5, at
250-52.
11
Amadeus Eckolt and Wilhelm Ludwell.22 He completed his disputations with Linck and
graduated in April 1676, then began to practice in Somerhausen.23
The movement for religious reform surrounding Pastorius during his legal education
continued to influence him while he practiced law. Somerhausen was suffering internal
upheaval, including a significant peasants' uprising that targeted Pastorius' father, while Pastorius
was practicing there.24 In reflecting on the two and one-half years he spent in practice in
Somerhausen, he wrote that he spent his time "marching from one Nobleman's house in the
Province unto the other . . . and in short making nothing but work for Repentance."25 It was that
22
See Res Propria, supra note 17, at 12; Weaver, supra note 5, at 246-47.
23
See Res Propria, supra note 17, at 12; Francis Pastorius, Disputatio Inauguralis De Rasura
Documentorus, Quam, Divina suffragante Gratia, Auctoritate Magnifici Jctorum Ordinis in
Incluto Noribergensium Athenaeo . . . (Dissertation, University of Nürenberg) (Altdorf, 1676). A
number of other Linck students completed dissertations on issues of public and local law. See,
e.g., Christoph Scheurl, De Judiciis Republicae Noribergensis . . . (Altdorf, 1670); Bernhard
Harssleben, Usum testamentorum moralen, civilen, canonicum et feudalem (Jena, 1673); Thomas
Stolley, De Usurarum praerogativa in concursu creditorum (Altdorf 1684); Christoph Clapmar,
De persecutione ac remissione delinquentium (Jena, 1671).
24
See Werner Korndörfer, Studien zur Geschichte der Reichsstadt vornehmlich im 17.
Jahrhundert (Ph.D. diss., University Erlangen-Nurnberg, 1972) (discussion of Windsheim
rebellion); Weaver, supra note 5, at 291-99 (discussing political and social upheaval in Pastorius'
Windsheim). Later, Pastorius advised his father to judge rightly. Umständige Beschreibung,
supra note 17, at 61-62, quoted in Weaver, supra note 5, at 290 ("May we constantly bear in mind
that the Most Superior Judge of the living and the dead confers such governmental power upon
us for the sake of the common good rather than for our personal advantage, and that, on the great
Day of Final Judgment, He will expect much of those who were given much.").
25
Bee Hive, supra 1, at 229. Later in life, Pastorius wrote home to his father his concern that
his half-brother was studying law:
I only regret that anyone who . . . learned piety and the fear of the Lord from his
dear Parents . . . may then lose this piety again while at the University . . . at
extreme danger to his mortal soul, and I would rather advise him . . . to learn a
decent and readily-comprehensible trade in which he could serve God and his
fellow man; although the crafts are despised and held in low esteem among you,
12
attitude that made Pastorius susceptible to the suggestion of Dr. Johann Heinrich Horb, a
professor of religion at the University of Strassburg during Pastorius' tenure there, to relocate to
Frankfurt in 1679, a hotbed of religious reform.26
In Frankfurt Pastorius "still plaid the Lawyer"27 while he developed a friendship with a
group of Pietists, an offshoot of the Lutherans who criticized Lutherans for their emphasis on
doctrine over "the teaching of an earnest, inner godliness."28 At the center of the Frankfurt
Pietists was Philip Jacob Spener, a prominent Lutheran minister in Frankfurt and the author of
the Pia Desideria, the leading statement of Pietism and a brother-in-law of Johann Heinrich Horb.
Pia Desideria proposed "the ancient and apostolic kind of church meetings" of lay people--a
collection of people known as the collegia pietatis--as a way of reforming the church. It also
criticized the civil authorities for failing to pay attention to spiritual matters:
how few [civil authorities] there are who remember that God gave them their
scepters and staffs in order that they use their power to advance the Kingdom of
God! Instead, most of them, as is customary with great lords, live in those sins
and debaucheries that usually go along with court life and are regarded as virtually
inseparable from it, while other magistrates are intent on seeking their own
advantage. From their manner of life one must conclude with sighs that few of
them know what Christianity is, to say nothing of their being Christians and
practicing the Christian life. How many of them there are who do not concern
they are nevertheless far more in keeping with God's laws and the teachings of the
Apostles than all the strange conceits of the scholastics.
Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 99-100, quoted in Weaver, supra note 5, at 290. See
also id. at 54 (criticizing excesses of Europe and European schools for teaching nothing useful).
26
Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 401.
27
Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 227; Res Propria, supra note 17, at 11 (noting that he represented
a food supplier while in Frankfurt), quoted in Toms, supra note 21, at 68.
28
Elizabeth W . Fisher, "Prophesies and Revelations": German Cabbalists in Early Pennsylvania, 109 Penn.
Mag. Hist. & Bio. 299, 301 (1985).
13
themselves at all with what is spiritual, who hold . . . that they have nothing to do
with anything but the temporal!29
Among Spener's beliefs expressed in Pia Desideria was the thought that the millennium was fast
approaching and that lay people could hasten it by reforming the church. One way to awaken
spirituality in lay people was to emigrate to America, where they could pursue their livelihood
away from the corruption of Europe.30 Pastorius, writing to his parents in March 1684, shortly
after he arrived in Pennsylvania, emphasized the impending "divine justice" that "will be poured
out over this abominable Babylon to the point of total destruction. If you want to escape the
calamity awaiting Germany . . . do not become accomplices to its sin. . . depart from it!"
Spiritual as well as physical separation was needed, he thought, to escape the "Babylonian
vanities and disordered human laws" of Europe.31
29
Philip Jacob Spener, Pia Desideria 43 (Theodore G. Tappert trans. 1964). Spener refers to
the Biblical injunction that civil authorities act as foster parents. Id. (citing Isaiah 49:23).
References to magistrates as parents was widespread in early America. See, e.g., Richard L.
Bushman, From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765 18-20
(1968). In his commentary on Pia Desideria published in 1680, Horb specifically criticized
lawyers and judges for their failure to settle cases quickly. See Johann Jackob Spener, Pia
Desideria 181-86 (Johann Heinrich Horb ed. Frankfurt 1680), discussed in Weaver, supra note 5,
at 290-92.
30
See Fisher, supra note 28, at 302-03; Johannes Wallmann, Philip Jakob Spener und die
Anfänge des Pietismus 283-306 (1970). Some Pietists believed the millennium was imminent
and that a more decentralized church governance, allowing lay people to gather and work as the
seed for reformation of the church, would hasten its coming. Others believed that it was
desirable to refocus individuals' attention on God, without necessarily linking piety to the
millennium. See Fisher, supra, at 302-03. Apparently Pastorius belonged to the later group. See
Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 45, 48 (letters to Schütz describing Pastorius' hopes
for quiet and pious life in Pennsylvania). But see id. at 41-43 March 7, 1684 (millennial theme
of impending destruction of Europe in Pastorius' letter); Weaver, supra note 5, at 298-302, 39394 (emphasizing Pastorius' millennial ideas).
31
Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 42-43, quoted in Weaver, supra note 5, at 299.
See also Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 99 (criticizing excesses of Europe); id. at
14
One prominent Pietist particularly important to Pastorius was Johann Jacob Schütz, a
Frankfurt lawyer. Schütz compiled the lectures of Johann Lauterbach, a law professor at the
University of Frankfurt, on Justinian and published them in 1679, shortly after Lauterbach's
death. The lectures, called the Compendium Iuris, became one of the most popular law books in
Germany in the early eighteenth century and were reprinted frequently until 1744.32 The preface
to the Compendium Iuris criticized "the inexperience, negligence, and malice of the judges,
lawyers, and litigants, whose outrageous conduct is creating nothing but disorder." Instead,
Schütz urged reliance upon "the true laws of our most holy Savior" based on "pure love."
Pastorius expressed similar sentiments in a poem to James Logan, a Justice in Philadelphia: "Do
not say that your social rank demands that you do what Christ has forbidden . . . Woe to you
eternally, if you seek honors and riches opposed to the meekness of Christ." Like Schütz,
Pastorius was concerned with the law's focus on wealth rather than the inner spirit.33
53 (describing the earthquake of 1692 in Port Royal, Jamaica as divine retribution in which
wealthy were punished, whether they acquired wealth legally or illegally).
32
See Johann Jakob Schütz, Compendium Iuris (Tubingen, 1679). There were numerous
reprintings of Compendium Iuris until the middle of the eighteenth century. See Klaus Luig,
"Wolfgang Adam Lauterbach," 13 Neue Deutsche Biographie 736-38 (1982). See also Fredrich
Elsener, Die Schwiezer Rechtsschulen vom 16
bis zum 19 Jahrhundert 82 n. 31 (1975).
33
See Weaver, supra note 5, at 324-25 (translating Compendium Iuris); Bee Hive, supra note
1, Poem 354 (poem to James Logan). Pastorius kept a copy of Compendium Iuris in his library
and occasionally referred to it. See infra note 34 (listing law books in Pastorius' library); Bigamy
Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (referring to Compendium Iuris for prohibition on bigamy).
Pastorius lived with Schütz upon his arrival in Frankfurt and their friendship continued even after
Pastorius emigrated to America. Pastorius corresponded with Schütz, reporting the ways that
Germans in Pennsylvania were reforming society. See Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 229;
Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 45, 48. See also Francis Daniel Pastorius, Sichere
Nachricht (1684) (report to Saalhof Pietists).
15
Based on the books in Pastorius' library and on an examination of his colleagues in
Frankfurt,34 it is possible to reconstruct the nature of his beliefs about Pietism. The leading
religious reformers of the early seventeenth century, the people whose thought presaged that of
the Pietists in emphasizing individuals' spiritual connection to God over religious doctrine, are
represented in the books in Pastorius' library. Pastorius had several copies of Thomas à Kempis'
The Imitation of Christ, a central document to early seventeenth century German Lutherans,
which emphasized mystical piety through the connection of individuals to Christ.35
34
Professor Learned's excellent biography includes a list, taken from the Res Propria, of
Pastorius' library around 1719. See Learned, supra note 2, at 275-84 [hereafter Pastorius'
Library]. The books in his library relating to law included: Edward Cocker, Young Clerk's Tutor
(London, 1680) Wing C4860; John Hill, Young Secretary's Guide (London, 8th ed. 1697) Wing
H1993; Richard Hill, Young Clerk's Guide (London, 1649); Richard Chamberlain, Complete
Justice (London, 1681); Johann Jacok Schütz, Compendium Juris
Brevissimis Verbis (Tübingen, Johan Georg Cottta, 2nd ed. 1681); Conductor Generalis
(London, 1686); and an edition of Edward Coke's Reports (London, 1656). Pastorius' pamphlets
on law included Thomas Ellwood, Caution to Constables on Conventicles Act (London 1683)
Wing E616; Abstract of the Laws of Pennsylvania, supra note 3; Concerning the Election of
Assembly men (Philadelphia, 1714); Anon., Proceeding Against the Rebels in the West of
England (London, 1679); Bayard, Trial for High Treason, supra note 4; J.S. The Case of Quakers
Concerning Oaths (London, 1681); Penn, Privilege of Liberty, supra note 3; William Penn,
Constant Cry of the Oppressed for Justice (London, 1677).
The Bee Hive also contains a separate list of books that Pastorius referred to in compiling
the Bee Hive, although he did not own all of them. See Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 120-25. The
law books referenced in the Bee Hive included John Cowell's Interpreter (London, 1609), George
Whitehead, Due Order of Law Pleaded Against Irregular & Arbitrary Proceedings (London,
1680), William Penn, The People's Ancient
Liberties Asserted in the Trial of William Penn (London, 1670); and George Merton, The
Touchstone of Wills, Testaments and Administrations (1668).
His manuscript volumes included "Law Terms added to Complete Justice"; "Leges
Pennsilvannae," Am. 1991, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; "Good Counsel for bad Lawyers
and Attornies". Unfortunately, "Good Advice" and "Law Terms added to Complete Justice" have
been lost. The later was apparently written to help Germans understand English law. See
Pastorius, Bee Hive, supra note 1, stanza 48.
35
See Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (London, 1657); Pastorius' Library, supra
note 34.
16
Particularly influential on the Frankfurt Pietists were Jacob Böhme and Johann Valentin
Andreae. Together Böhme, a shoemaker from Görlitz, who lived from 1575 until 1624 and
Andreae, a theologian from Wurttenburg who died in 1668, inspired the Pietists' beliefs in the
possibility of reformation of society through the study of nature. Pastorius had two of Böhme's
books, Aurora, oder die Morgenröte im Aufgang (1606) and Der Weg zu Christo (1624), which
promised a restoration of paradise.36 Similar to Böhme in outlook was Johann Valentin Andreae,
one of Schütz' cousins, whose writings spoke of a mythical Rosicrucian Brotherhood, which has
supposedly existed since the fourteenth century. Andreae claimed to have re-discovered in 1604
Rosicrucian writings, which deciphered God's meanings hidden in nature. He thought that their
rediscovery presaged a reformation of society based on a reawakening of religious spirit.
Pastorius had a copy of Andreae's Menippus, a general attack on shortcomings of society and was
undoubtedly familiar with Andreae's thoughts.37
Pastorius also had numerous popular books written in German, including Johann Tauler's
Kernlehre, a collection of writings by the fourteenth-century mystic emphasizing the importance
of individual Christianity independent of church doctrine,38 and Johann Arndt's Vom wahren
Christenthum, published in 1606, an early seventeenth-century precursor to the Pietists. Arndt
recognized the "insufficiency of orthodox doctrine toward the complete attainment of a true
36
On Böhme, see Fisher, supra note 28, at 310-11; Nils Thune, The Behmenists and the
Philadelphians 18-13 (1948); Pastorius' Library, supra note 34.
37
On Andreae and the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, see Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian
Enlightenment (1972); Fisher, supra note 28, at 306-08. Besides Andreae's satirical work,
Pastorius owned some writings by Johann Balthasar Schupp. See Toms, supra note 21, at 93.
38
In the Pia Desideria, Spener credits Tauler as second only to the Bible in "mak[ing] our
dear Luther what he was." Spener, supra note 29, at 110.
17
Christian life." The Wahren Christenthum presented Arndt's idea "of a personal religion founded
on Scripture and developed in the individual through spiritual illumination and experience."39
One common critique of established churches made by both the Pietists and Quakers was
that the church had strayed too far from its simple origins. William Penn's To the Churches of
Jesus Christ called for people to become "peacefully disentangled from the cares of the world."40
Before Pastorius read To the Churches of Jesus Christ, he probably read Heinrich Cornelius
Agrippa von Nettesheim's De incertitudine et vanitate scientarum, which attacked the
superstructure built on the simple principles of the Christian church.41 Pastorius' library also
included the key religious works of his generation of Pietists. He owned the works of August
Hermann Francke, a leading figure of Pietism in the later part of the seventeenth century.42
39
See Toms, supra note 21, at 83-85 (discussing religious books in Pastorius' library).
40
William Penn, To the Churches of Jesus Christ Throughout the World (1677), cited in
Weaver, supra note 5, at 322.
41
The corruption of the physical world was a common theme in Pastorius' writings. See Bee
Hive, supra note 1, at 229 (describing his motivations for leaving Europe as concern for vanity);
Res Propria, supra note 17, at 6; Pastorius, De Mundi Vanitate, Umständige Beschreibung, supra
note 17, at 62 (poem "Of the vane world," criticizing concern for the world); Von der Welt
Eitelkeit, id. at 63 ("of the vane world"); id. at 99 (criticizing European eduction in which
Aristotelian syllogisms substitute for religious piety and ethics). The criticism of Aritsotle
became common in the late seventeenth century German University. See 2/1 Coning, supra note
6, at 14-16.
42
Augustine Francke, Works (London 1710); Pietas Hallensis (London, 1705). See
Pastorius' Library, supra note 34 (listing Francke's Works and Pietas Hallensis in Pastorius'
library); Toms, supra note 21, at 151, 124 (discussing Francke). The writings of Humanists
appeared in Pastorius' library. He had books from Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Ramus and more
contemporary Humanists like Roger Ascham, A Report and Discourse of the Affairs of State of
Germany and the Emperor Charles his Court. See Pastorius' Library, supra note 34; Toms, supra
note 21, at 90, 165, 196 (discussing Humanists in Pastorius' library). On the relationship
between Humanism and law, see Guido Kisch, Der Einfluss des Humanismus auf die
Jurisprudenz, in Studien zur Humanistischen Jurisprdrudenz 17-64 (1972); Hans E. Troje, Die
18
Although Pastorius, at the urging of Spener, left Frankfurt for several months in 1681 and
1682 to accompany a young nobleman on a trip throughout Europe, his trip only confirmed his
disdain for European excesses. Upon return, he felt fortunate to be associated with his "Christian
friends," "especially those who frequently assembled in a house called the Saalhof," the meeting
place of the Frankfurt Pietists. Besides Spener and Schütz, Pastorius mentioned Notarius Fende,
Jacobus van de Wall, Maximillian Learner, Eleanor von Merlau, and Maria Juliana Barim, the
leaders of the Frankfurt Pietists, who represented some of the most influential religious reformers
in Germany in the later part of the seventeenth century. Together Fende, van de Wall, Learner,
and especially von Merlau, were progressing towards a vision that the millennium was
imminent.43 Pastorius' closest friend among the Frankfurt Pietists was probably Eleanor von
Merle. Writing in 1719, Pastorius commented that "I have been most Intimately Acquainted"
with von Merle "those 40 years past." von Merlau and her husband, Johann Petersen, helped to
provide the critical enthusiasm for the formation of the Frankfurt Pietists in the early 1670s and
then von Merle's brilliance helped to sustain the movement through the early eighteenth
century.44 Pastorius, having seen European excesses in war, politics, and law, was confirmed in
his Pietism and eager to act on his beliefs by 1682.
---
Literatur des Gemeinen Rechts Unter Dem Einfluss Des Humanismus, in 2 Coning, supra note
17, 615-795; infra note 76.
43
See Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 229. See Fisher, supra note 28; Toms, supra note 21, at 90,
145 (discussing Frankfurt Pietists).
44
Pastorius to Lloyd Zachary, April 18, 1719, Pastorius Letterbook, HSP; Johann Wilhelm
Petersen, Lebens-Beschreibung Johannis Wilhelmi Petersen . . . (2nd ed., Frankfurt, 1719). See
generally Fisher, supra note 28 (describing beliefs of circle of Frankfurt Pietists).
19
Soon after Charles II granted William Penn a colony in America in 1681, the Pietists saw
their chance to act on their beliefs that society could be reformed. Penn undertook a vigorous
promotional campaign for his colony, traveling throughout Germany and the Netherlands, areas
that he had visited several years before as a missionary, to promote settlement in his colony.
Penn also published promotional tracts, emphasizing the opportunity for both spiritual and
economic advancement.45
The Pietists in Frankfurt were well-acquainted with Penn; he had visited Frankfurt in
1677 and established a friendship with them, particularly with Nortarius Fende and Maximillian
Learner. The Frankfurt Pietists spoke enthusiastically with Pastorius about emigration to
Pennsylvania and circulated to Pastorius letters from Penn and Benjamin Furly, an English
Quaker living in Rotterdam, and probably Eine Nachricht wegen der Land-schaft Pennsilvania, a
translation of Penn's Some Account of the Province of Pennsylvania.46 Penn's pamphlet praised
both the opportunity for economic advancement and the ability to live peacefully, separated from
the strife of Europe. To encourage emigration and thus further their "philadelphian ideal," the
Salhoof Pietists formed the Frankfurt Land Company in 1682 to purchase land in Pennsylvania
and finance immigration.
45
On Penn's promotional writings, see Richard S. Dunn, Penny Wise and Pound Foolish:
Penn as a Businessman, in The World of William Penn 37-54 (Richard S. Dunn & Mary Maples
Dunn eds. 1986); Marianne S. Wokeck, Promoters and Passengers: The German Immigrant
Trade, id. 259-78; William I. Hull, William Penn and the Dutch Quaker Migration to
Pennsylvania 329-35 (1935).
46
See Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 229; William Penn, Some Account of the Province of
Pennsylvania (London, 1681). See also Bernhard Fabian, The English Book in EighteenthCentury Germany 6-8 (1991) (discussing the importance of English devotional works, translated
by German Pietists, in bringing English ideas into German culture in the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth century).
20
Pastorius, believing that the entire group was about to emigrate, felt "a desire in my soul
to continue in their Society, and with them to lead a quiet, godly and honest life in a howling
Wilderness."47 The Pietists took full advantage of their trusted and learned friend and designated
Pastorius as their agent in Pennsylvania. In April 1683, fortified with the Company's Articles of
Incorporation, a Letter of Attorney to act as their agent, and apparently dozens of books on
religious themes, Pastorius departed Frankfurt for Pennsylvania, by way of London.48 Upon
departing Deal, England, Pastorius wrote a Farewell letter reminiscent of those written by
English Puritans fleeing to New England. Pastorius wrote of his desire "to escape disaster in time
and eternity" by leaving "the worldly impudence and sin of Europe." He reminded his father one
more time of young German noblemen who waste "their German patrimony on worldly frivolities
that profit no one" and who use both legal and illegal means "to live in pomp and finery after
finishing the university."49
47
See Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 229. Pastorius also wrote that after hearing the extreme
praise of Pennsylvania, "there arose a not small lust with me to set sail in their company (after
seeing the abundance and costs of European vanity) to lead a quit and Christian life next to
them." Res Propria, supra note 17, at 6, quoted in Toms, supra note 21, at 79 (in German)
(translation mine). Eventually, under Pastorius' leadership, the Company purchased 25,000
acres; their largest supporter was Schütz, who purchased 4,000 acres. On Schütz' religious
connection to Spener, see Wallmann, supra note 30, at 283-306.
48
See Wallmann, supra note 30, at 321 (discussing formation of Frankfurt Company);
Pastorius' Library, supra note 34 (listing books in Pastorius' library in 1718, many of which were
published before Pastorius' emigration). Johann Jackob Schütz, who died before he had the
opportunity to emigrate, served as a director of the Frankfurt Land Company and in that capacity
had contact with Pastorius; Pastorius continued to express his friendship to Schütz and Schütz'
widow throughout his life. See Francis Daniel Pastorius, Exemplum Sine Exemplo, (Swathmore
College Library), reprinted in Pennsylvania Colonial Cases 171 (Samuel W. Pennypacker ed.
1892) (mentioning Schütz in connection with Frankfurt Company litigation).
49
Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 43; The Puritans in America: An Anthology
62-80 (Alan Heimert & Andrew Delbanco eds., 1988) (discussing English Puritans' Farewell
21
Once he arrived in Pennsylvania, Pastorius quickly took on an important role in German
society. As the Frankfurt Land Company's agent he was responsible for a 15,000 acre tract of
land, which he purchased for the Company in London, and for the distribution of the Company's
land to its members. The Company's Charter, not written until 1686, provided for the economic
development of the Company. Members of the Company were given the right to vote and
receive profits based on the number of shares they owned. The Charter contemplated the
purchase of a brick kiln, commodities and cattle, to be owned jointly by the members of the
Company and provided for the transportation to Pennsylvania at Company expense of both
people--servants and tenants--and products, such as tools and food. Perhaps most importantly, it
provided for the distribution of Company land through both sale and rental.50 Pastorius
negotiated with William Penn, the proprietor of the colony, to obtain a Charter for Germantown.
The Charter, modeled on English borough charters, allowed the Germantown residents to set up
their own court and free themselves from some taxation. Pastorius was established as bailiff and
in that capacity presided over the court. The Charter was an important accomplishment for
Sermons).
50
See Learned, supra note 2, at 288-93 (reprinting charter of Frankfurt Land Company) (in
German); plate following 298 (Pastorius' map of the Germantown, showing Frankfurt Company's
land sales); 110 (discussing land sales in Pennsylvania); 121 (reprinting Pastorius' letter of
attorney authorizing him to act for the Company). Some of Pastorius' records of land distributed
by the Frankfurt Company are preserved in his manuscript, Grund und Lager Buch, HSP. For a
modern reprinting of the original distributions of land, see Stephanie G. Wolf, Urban Village:
Population, Community, and Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1683-1800 60-62
(1976).
22
Pastorius and the Frankfurt Land Company, which he proudly mentioned in his letters home
encouraging immigration to Pennsylvania.51
As proprietor of the colony, William Penn had the right to appoint the justices of the
County Courts.52 Penn recognized the importance of the local justices. In appointing the justices
of New Castle County in 1701, Penn reminded them of the importance of their position:
I need not putt you in mind, I hope, what Efficacy & Influence the
Example of Authority has always had on the minds of the people,
nor can you be insensible that the management of those that stand
invested with the power of the Laws often works stronger in the
minds about them than the Apprehensions of the Laws themselves.
. . . You are intrusted with the administration of justice; you are
her officers and are not called so much to serve me or any interest
of mine, as to serve the Publick, to whose Good each man is a born
debtor.53
Penn, therefore, sought Justices who would lay "the Line of Equity and true Judgment."54 Penn
recognized Pastorius' substantial talent and his importance in the German community by
appointing him a Justice of the Philadelphia County Court in 1686 and later clerk of the
51
See Brieffe aus Pennslvanien, October 10, 1691, in Umständige Beschreibung, supra note
17, at 49, 50-51; Weiterer Bericht aus Germanton, June 1, 1693, id. at 54, 55; 1 Pennsylvania
Archives 111-15 (Philadelphia, 1838) (printing charter).
52
For a fine study of Penn's rights and duties as proprietor, see William R. Shepherd, History
of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania (1896).
53
1 Pennsylvania Archives, supra note 51, at 142, 143.
54
See Penn to Sussex County Justices, Dec. 25, 1682, 3 Papers of William Penn, Microfilm
Edition, at 719 [hereafter Micro]. For more on the role of the justice in early American society,
see infra II.A.3; Bushman, supra note 29, chap. 1; T. H. Breen, The Character of the Good Ruler:
A Study of Puritan Political Ideas in New England, 1630-1730 (1970).
23
Philadelphia County Court. In 1693, Governor Benjamin Fletcher again appointed Pastorius a
Justice; meanwhile Pastorius served as a clerk and judge of the Germantown court.55
Even after his term as a Justice ended, Pastorius remained a central figure in the German
community; he began teaching school in 1698 and compiled some of his important manuscripts,
including his Bee Hive, a huge volume containing excerpts from books that he read as well as his
own thoughts. The Bee Hive is a fascinating book; it contains a table of all the books that he
read while compiling the Bee Hive and that alone makes the manuscript almost invaluable as a
source of information on the books in circulation in early Pennsylvania. But Pastorius'
bibliography is not the most important part of the work; elsewhere in the Bee Hive, Pastorius
copied into nearly 2000 "honeycombs" the nectar of wisdom he found in the books he read. He
further collected some of the writings and reformed them into a sort of encyclopedia. The
several hundred headings of his encyclopedia included such diverse subjects as "Justice,"
"cannibalism," "Redemption," and "Universal Grace." At other points in the manuscript he has
popular maxims, several hundred stanzas of poetry, copies of letters he wrote, a short
autobiography, and a biography of his family.56
After 1698, when Pastorius began teaching school, he had less time to devote to the
operation of the Frankfurt Land Company. Consequently, he asked to be relieved of his duties as
attorney for the Company, a duty he undertook only because he believed that "others would
55
See Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 54-55; Records of the Court of Record of
Germantown, HSP; Raths-Buch der Germantownishcen Gemeinde, HSP. See also Lionel K.J.
Glassey, Politics and the Appointment of Justices of the Peace, 1675-1720 (1979) (discussing
role of justices in politics in England).
56
Professor Learned undertook the task of reprinting some of the Bee Hive's poems. See
Michael Learned, German-American Historical Magazine passim (1898-1904).
24
follow on my heels as soon as the ice is broken."57 Eventually, through somewhat nefarious
dealings, several other people emerged who took control of the Frankfurt Company.58 Pastorius
then devoted more time to his own scholarly efforts, to teaching, and less time to involvement in
political affairs. His health declined and he died shortly after December 18, 1719, leaving behind
a wealth of manuscripts as a tribute to his wide-ranging interests.59
III
Pastorius' Beliefs About Law and Religion
A.
Pietism and Law
Pastorius' thoughts on a diverse range of subjects appear in his extensive writings. Most
prominent are his thoughts on religion, which provided guidance in how humans should behave.
Overriding all human concerns was a sense of love. He asked in verse:
With his own kind deals bad
neither wolf nor leopard
why then should put Christ the man
Christian against Christian
when he commands constantly
Love and Peace and Unity. John 13:24 etc.60
57
See Exemplum sine Exemplo, supra note 48, at 127.
58
See Exemplum sine Exemplo, supra note 48 (describing machinations of Daniel Faulkner
and others to gain control of Frankfurt Company, presumably for their own profit); Petition of
Francis Daniel Pastorius, March 1708, 2 Minutes of the Provincial Council 430 (Philadelphia,
1852) (appealing decision of Philadelphia County Court to Provincial Council); Frankfurt
manuscripts, Pastorius Collection, HSP (original of Pastorius' petition). Swathmore College's
Quaker Collection has several manuscripts detailing the litigation, which have been excerpted in
Pennypacker, supra note 48, at 143-74. Julius Sachse has taken a somewhat more favorable view
of Pastorius' opponents. See Julius Sachse, The Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania 304-13
(1886).
59
60
See W okeck, supra note 2, at 590.
Francis Daniel Pastorius, Commonplace Book, HSP 582.
25
The themes of love, peace and unity appear throughout his writings and those of other Pietists.61
Before the entry in his commonplace book for Jeremiah Dykes' Treatise of Good Conscience,
Pastorius wrote:
Our Duty is to reverence
the good of God in everyman
and Labour too, as much we can,
To get and keep good Conscience.62
Similarly, he identified seven elements that permeated human society. "The Revolution or
changeable character course and Recourse of the present world;/viz of all Empires, kingdoms,
and Provinces thereof, yea of all particular Inhabitants of the Same, prefigured in a wheel of
seven spokes: Poorness (Armüth), Humility, Peace, Traffik, Wealth, Pride, War."63
Morality occupied a central role in Pastorius' thoughts about law and lawyers. He
summed up his pessimistic attitude toward lawyers in one stanza of his poetry:
Those who for money's sake Doe Preach and Plead and Cure,
May of the Fiery Lake Fulwell Themselves Assure.
But they that Preach, Plead, Cure as Christ, our Lord, has done
For Love's sake, free & pure, Are Blessed ones anon. Forever & ever.
Good Teachers, Lawyers and Physicians surely grieve,
61
See generally Spener, supra note 29; Johann Jakob Schütz, Gedenck Büchlein (Frankfurt,
1675); Poem to James Logan, Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 167; Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy, A
Way Proposed to make the poor in these & other nations happy by bringing together a fit,
suitable, and well-qualified People (London, 1659) Wing P1724 (essay by settler of Germantown
preaching love of neighbors).
62
Pastorius, supra note 60, at 608.
63
Id. at 605. See also Bee Hive, supra note 1, poem 12: "war begets Poverty, Poverty
Peace/Then People will traffick, & Riches increase/Riches produceth Pride; Pride is War's
ground/War begets Poverty, So we go round."
26
When others do bemoan more than themselves would give.64
Lawyers were particularly problematic in Pastorius' vision of a peaceful community. He related
the parable of "a poor man [who] complained to a king that a L[awyer] took a Cow from him. I
will hear (:saith the king) what the L[awyer] will say to the matter. Nay (:saith the poorman) if
you hear him speak then have I lost my Cow indeed."65
Pastorius, like other Pietists, focused on the inward nature of the search for peace. In the
world of late seventeenth-century Germany, which was torn by war and vast disparities of wealth,
the gravitational pull of a religion promising peaceful coexistence with other humans proved
strong. The beliefs formulated in Germany continued to exercise control in America. Pastorius
frequently wrote home to Germany praising the simple and godly life in America.66
64
See Pastorius, Bee Hive, supra note 1, stanza 334. See also id. at stanza 393 (opposing 8%
interest rate as usurious).
Pastorius' critique of lawyers mirrors that of George Fox. In his Journal, Fox argued that
lawyers pretend to cure "the property of the people." But they do so "out[side] of the equity and
perfect law of God." The lawyers might be reformed, Fox thought, if they were "brought into the
law of God." God would in turn answer for their transgressions and bring them to love their
neighbor as they loved themselves. "This [love of God] lets man see if he wrongs his neighbors
he wrongs himself; and this teaches him to do unto others as he would they should do unto him."
Journal of George Fox, 26-27 (London, Thomas Ellwood ed. 1696) (Henry J. Cadbury ed. 1952).
Fox believed, as did Pastorius, that lawyers, physicians, and priests might be reformed if they
"believe in the light and walk in the light," a metaphor for acceptance of Quaker beliefs. Id. at
29. Pastorius criticized the physical appearance of lawyers with white wigs. See Bee Hive sec.
27, supp. (citing 1 Corinthians 11:14 and Revelations 9:8). While it was lawyers' white dress
that drew Pastorius' attention, George Fox directed his comments to the "lawyers black, their
blacks robes as a puddle, and like unto a black pit, almost covered over with blackness." George
Fox, Law of God the Rule of Lawmakers 3 (London, 1658).
65
Lawyer Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1.
66
See Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 52.
27
Pastorius' disdain for inhumanity appeared most strongly in his writings on slavery. He is
credited with writing the first anti-slavery protest in British North America. The Protest,
addressed to a Monthly Meeting of Quakers, argued first that no one would themselves want to
be treated as a slave. "How fearful and fainthearted are many on sea when they see a strange
vessel, being afraid it should be a Turck, and they should be taken and sold for slaves into
Turckey." The Protest then went on to argue, based on the precept that "we shall doe to all men,
licke as we will be done our selves," that blacks should not be enslaved, because the saying
should be followed, no matter what "Generation, descent, or Colour they are." It was the protest
that motivated John Greenleaf Whittier's apotheosis of Pastorius in the 1871 poem, "The
Pennsylvania Pilgrim."67
Closely akin to slavery in Pastorius' mind was usury. Usury proved particularly
troublesome to Pastorius as it did to so many other Protestants in the seventeenth century. Some
of his thoughts appear in the Bee Hive, such as his combined protest against both slavery and
usury:
If in Christian Doctrine we abide, then God is surely on our side;
But if we Christ's Precepts transgress, Negroes by Slavery oppress,
And white ones grieve by usury (Two evils, which to Heaven cry),
We've neither God, not Christ his son, But straightways travel
Hellwards on.
...
Among Christ's followers Are no Extortioners,
67
See Learned, supra note 2, at 261-2 (reprinting Protest); John Greenleaf Whittier, The
Pennsylvania Pilgrim, in The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier 103-12
(1891). See also Ira V. Brown, Pennsylvania's Antislavery Pioneers, 1688-1776, 55
Pennsylvania Hist. 59, 62-63 (1988). George Keith employed similar arguments in his 1693
protest, An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes
(Philadelphia, 1693) Evans 636. Keith relied upon the Golden Rule, among other biblical
injunctions, to urge Quakers to avoid buying slaves.
28
No biting Usuers, not Negro (worryers) butchers
All these are Satan's tools, Abominable Fools,
Not worthy of Christ's Name, to which they bring but Shame.68
Later he further criticized usury:
It is a great Mistake at best
To call that Monster Interest,
Which God and good men, as we see,
Have ever stiled Usery;
But now our Saints this name refuse,
And to their Brethren lend on use:
On Usury, says Christ our Lord,
Though they abbreviate the word;
Yet surely, 'tis not His Intent,
T'abbreviate their Punishment.69
B. Pastorius and the Concept of Law
Beyond the injunctions against usury and slavery, Pastorius has also left his thoughts
about justice and law generally. His views on those subjects, as on every other, rested heavily
upon his interpretation of the Bible. One gains a sense of the overriding importance of religion
for his concept of the law from the title page of Pastorius' manuscript copy of the laws of
Pennsylvania and Germantown. He wrote three maxims, two taken from the Bible:
All the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: Thou shalt Love thy neighbor as
thyself. Job 5:14. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them, for this is the Law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12
Salus populus suprema lex est.70
68
Bee Hive, supra note 1, stanzas 471, 474.
69
Id., stanza 479.
70
Pennsilvania Leges, folio 1, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. He also cited Romans
13:8 ("Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has
fulfilled the law."). Id. at 1. The Pennsylvania Leges is a manuscript copy of the laws. Each
county had its own copy of the laws, which was hand copied after the conclusion of each session
of the legislature. See 1 Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, 1680 to 1700, (Gail Beckman ed.
29
His aphorisms on the next page included: "The law is good, if a man use it lawfully," a
paraphrase of Paul's first letter to Timothy, which he repeated in his entry on Law in the Bee
Hive.71 The phrase is ambiguous, but Pastorius probably believed that it requires a litigant to
follow the spirit of the law. Indeed, the spirit was believed by Quakers to supercede human law,
a theme that Pastorius elaborated in his Bee Hive entry for Law. There he made several Biblical
references to the spirit's triumph over law, noting that: "by the law of the Spirit of life we
overcome the Law of Sin and Death" and "the Spirit lead thee through the Law from under the
Law to Grace."72 Pastorius concluded that by "Christ['s] bringing in everlasting righteousness the
law is fulfilled."73 Pastorius drew upon the writings of George Fox, a founder of Quakerism, for
1976) Chaps. 38, at 124; Chap. 60, at 142 (requiring that the laws be posted at the courthouse,
read to the community yearly, and read to initial meetings of the courts); Penn to Justices of New
Castle, Jan 7, 1701, 1 Pennsylvania Archives 142 (reporting that laws will be sent to Justices as
soon they can be copied). Pastorius may have made his own copy from the Philadelphia County
laws. In addition to the Pennsylvania statutory laws, Pennsylvania Leges contains the charters to
Pennsylvania and Germantown.
Seventeenth and eighteenth century lawyers glossed the phrase salus populi extensively.
See Francis Bacon, Of Judicature, in Essaies 316, 323 (London, 1654); Giles Jacob, A New Law
Dictionary (London, 1729), quoted in Conductor Generalis 447 (Philadelphia, 1749) Evans 6300.
71
Pennsylvania Leges, supra note 34, 70, at 2 (paraphrasing 1 Timothy 1:11). See also Bee
Hive, Law Entry ("The law is good if a man use it lawfully").
72
See Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1, (citing Rom 8:2). For similar statements by George
Fox, see Journal, supra note 64, at 16-18; William Penn, Fundamental Constitutions, 2 Papers of
William Penn 140 (Richard S. Dunn. ed 1986) [hereafter PWP].
73
Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (citing Daniel 9:24 and 1 Timothy 1:9); Fox, supra note
64, at 16-18. The tension between the spirit and the law explained in Paul's Letter to the
Apostles generated substantial debate in early modern thought. See, e.g., id.; 1 Legal Papers of
Alexander Hamilton 359 (Julius Goebel ed. 1965) (Hamilton's notes from argument in Rutgers v.
Waddington that "in law as in religion letter kills"). Professor Horwitz has recently suggested
that differences in approaches to constitutional interpretation in early America correlate with
modes of biblical interpretation. Horwitz has even suggested that the differences in
constitutional and legal approaches of Jefferson and Marshall may derive from their different
30
his views of law. In keeping with Fox, Pastorius believed that reliance upon God's commands
and faith in God would fulfill man's duties and allow them to attain salvation, thus allowing
humans to overcome the "law" that humans were sinful.74
In a 1692 letter to his father in Germany, Pastorius wrote that he had identified what he
called the Leges Concepirte--legal ideas--to guide the Germantown court in deciding cases. He
reported to his father that he had written the "following heavenly memoranda on his copy" of the
Germantown lawbook:
It is without authority, unless from God. Rom 13:1. You are given the authority
by Him and the power from heaven that will tell you how to act. Sap. 1 For that
reason let the search of men and take not a bribe. Exod. 23:8. Afflict no widow
nor orphan. Exod. 22:22. Create right for the poor and help the wretched and
destitute. Ps. 82:[3] Judge right between everyman, stand with no person but
hear the small [in like manner] as the great. Deut. 1:16. You shall also not follow
unjust bargaining in law courts. Lev. 19:15. You also ought not to make favor. 1
Tim. 5:11. In your election set importance on bold, honest, wise, experienced,
and sensible people, who seek God, and are the enemy of haste and meanness.
Deut. 1:13. Pious men have no twisted heart nor proud attitude and arrogance, so
also they are not slanderous, false, and lying. Ps. 101:4 How you wish people to
treat you, so treat them. Luc 6:31.75
In a similar sentiment, he wrote on his copy of the laws, "Extreme Right is Extreme
Wrong," a popular phrase in the seventeenth century, perhaps taken from Cicero, which also
suggested that it is inappropriate to exact the utmost in legal rights from an adversary.76 The
religious backgrounds. See Morton J. Horwitz, Foreword: The Constitution of Change: Legal
Foundationalism without Fundamentalism, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 32, 48-51 & n. 90 (1993).
74
See Fox, Journal, supra note 64, at 22-23, 32-33.
75
Brieffe aus Pensylvanian von 10 Oct. 1691, Umständige, supra note 17, at 50-51 (in
German).
76
Pennsylvania Leges, supra note 22, at 2. See also Primmer, supra note 17, at 34-35 (entry
on magistrates' duties). Cicero, 1 De Officiis 10, 33.
31
Bible provided a "rule to walk by" for Protestants in general in early America.77 Pastorius was
familiar with English writers who similarly relied on the Bible for legal principles. The writings
of George Fox, a founder of Quakerism, circulated freely in Pennsylvania. In addition to Fox's
Journal, Pastorius had access to Fox's Instruction to Judges and Lawyers, a tract published in
1659 to encourage judges to conform their behavior to Biblical precepts. Fox urged the abolition
of the death penalty for property crimes; the punishment was inconsistent with "the Scripture, the
Later in life, Pastorius used the phrase to attack Daniel Falkner, who had used legal
machinations to wrest control of the Frankfurt Land Company from Pastorius. In his essay on the
Frankfurt Land Company litigation, Pastorius invoked the aphorism, "summo jure, ie, summa
Injuria, by extreme right, extreme wrong" when discussing the inequity of ejecting him as legal
representative of the Frankfurt Land Company, based on questionable legal maneuvering. See
Exemplum, supra note 48.
The phrase "Summa ius summa injuria" occupied an important place in post-Renaissance
legal thinking. See Guido Kisch, Summum Ius Summa Inuria: Basler Humanisten und der
Aequitas, in Aequitas und Fides, Festgabe zum 70 Geburtstag von August Simonius (Basel,
1955). See generally Guido Kisch, Humanismus und Jurisprudenz (Basel, 1955); Guido Kisch,
Humanistic Jurisprudence, 8 Studies in the Renaissance 71-87 (1960); Myron Gilmore,
Humanists and Jurists: Six Studies in the Renaissance (1963). The phrase also appeared widely
in English law. In a 1693 pamphlet describing a trial in Philadelphia, one writer commented that
"for ever the Law saith, Summa jus, Summa Injuria; i.e. The Rigour of the Law is high Injustice;
. . . the Law of Christianity [may] be called Lex Misercordia, i.e. The Law of Mercy, that is,
forbearing, and exacteth not the utmost Farthing." Trials of Quakers, supra note 84, at 24-25. It
is likely that Pastorius was exposed to the
writings of legal humanists who used the phrase as an illustration of the errors of German law.
77
For discussion of the importance of Mosaic law upon early America, see Goebel, supra
note 9, at 416-48; Bushman, supra note 29, chap. 1; Haskins, supra note 10 141-62; G.B.
Warden, Law Reform in England and New England, 1620 to 1660, 35 William & Mary Q. 66890 (1978). For the influence of religion on English law specifically, see John Dykstra Eusden,
Puritans, Lawyers, and Politics in Early Seventeenth-Century England (1958); Nancy L.
Matthews, William Sheppard, Thomas Cromwell's Law Reformer (1984); Barbara Shapiro,
Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the Relationships
between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature (1983); Donald Veall, The
Popular Movement for Law Reform, 1640-1660 (1960).
32
Law of God, and the Apostles Doctrine."78 He also argued against legal fictions as "not a form of
sound words" but "a form of lyes" and thus inconsistent with Moses' teaching that lies should be
punished. Similarly inconsistent with Biblical teachings, Fox thought, was the requirement that
defendants be forced to appear in court through an attorney rather than in person, even though the
writs issued to defendants were issued in the defendants' names. Fox reserved special scorn for
the judges who prosecuted Quakers for refusing to remove their hats in the presence of the court,
a practice itself rooted in Quaker opposition to elevating one group of human beings over
others.79
And when the Judge is askt by the prisoner concerning the hat, what Law and
custom is for it, and where he may read it? Oh, cryes the Judge, and swells, and
rages, and full of fury, I doe not carry my Law books upon my back; I but faith the
poor prisoner, the Judges of old was legs to the lame, and eyes to the blind, and a
help to the helpless, and why wilt not thou and you inform me of that Law and
custome that sayes, I must be fined a hundred mark, and forty pounds, if I will not
put off my hat to you. . . and thus the poor prisoner goes away uninformed in the
Law and custom, not knowing the ground and the author of it, the Judge not
informing him, contrary to Moses and the Judges of old, and the Scripture, which
saith, They shall teach them in the Law, and instruct them in the Law . . . that all
might know it and fear.80
In his entry on "Justice" in the Bee Hive, Pastorius refers to Henry Clark's Here is True
Magistracy Described, a pamphlet written in 1660, that suggests the attributes that magistrates
should possess. Clark stated that "the way to rule well is to take Counsel of God." The
Magistrates were to "walk with the Lord God" and "to do justly and to love mercy, and govern
78
George Fox, An Instruction to Judges and Lawyers: that they may act and consider these as
the judges did of old . . . 6 (London, 1658) Wing F1848.
79
Id. at 22-23, 10 (discussing importance of humility).
80
Id. at 24.
33
the People by the law that is Holy, Just, Pure, and good, as it came from God." Clark's
suggestions were general and probably few disagreed with his advice, but at bottom was the
implication that if an individual disagreed with the law as it was applied, he could disobey it.
Clark's pamphlet concluded that love and obedience are owed magistrates, but if magistrates
order people to do something contrary to the command of God, the people should "underg[o] the
Penalties of their unjust laws."81 Pastorius' writings demonstrated a similar concern for general
notions of justice. And like Clark, Pastorius cited the Bible for general propositions surrounding
justice.
The Bible was the beginning point for his analysis of other issues involving government.
His pamphlet on taxation rested entirely upon the Bible for its discussion of individuals' duties to
pay taxes.82 Even when he did not refer explicitly to the Bible, Pastorius used religious
references as the starting points for his teachings. Under the heading "Law" in the Bee Hive, he
observed that "[t]here is no Law to be compared to Love. Between just laws and righteous men
[there is] no antipathy."83 The Bible thus provided a general framework for Pastorius' thinking
81
Henry Clark, Here is True Magistracy Described 6 (London, 1660). Clark wrote True
Magistracy to respond to charges that Quakers did not believe in civil courts. See infra III.C.
82
See Henry J. Cadbury, ed., Francis Daniel Pastorius, "Essay on Taxes," 54 Penn. Mag.
Hist. & Bio. 255-59 (1934). See also The Tithe-Teacher Plaintiff and the Poor Man Defendant,
in Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 297-300.
83
See Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1, ("The law is good if a man use it lawfully."). In
keeping with the prevailing beliefs of the late seventeenth century, Pastorius unfortunately
appended the historically inaccurate and theologically naive statement that "but the Jews made
use of it to crucify Christ. . . . they have acted contrary to your pure, loving God." Id. Pastorius
also expressed disdain, though less severe, for atheists. See Atheism Entry, Bee Hive, supra note
1.
34
about the goals of law, such as the promotion of love and peace. In order to achieve such
important goals, several elements were necessary--most prominently justice.
1. Justice
Pastorius grouped his thoughts about the nature of law and the legal system into three
main areas in his Bee Hive--justice (and its antithesis, injustice), law and magistrates. The need
for justice occupied a central position in Quaker political and religious thought in the seventeenth
century. Particularly because Quakers had themselves been left without justice so frequently--by
legislation aimed against them in Parliament, by failure of judges to protect them from attacks,
and by outright mistreatment by judges--Quaker writings are vigilant to note the need for justice
for a well-functioning country.84 For instance, Fox's Journal is replete with instances of the
unjust application of laws.85
84
See generally Craig W. Horle, The Quakers and the English Legal System, 1660-1689
(1988). Dr. Horle's wonderfully detailed book shows how Quakers mobilized legal and political
arguments to protect themselves from the English legal system. Several more general histories of
Quaker beliefs present illuminating discussions of the connection of Quaker beliefs to law. See,
e.g., Hugh Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan England (1964); Richard Vann, Quakers and Social
History (1968); J. William Frost, Quakers and the American Family chap. 1 (1972) (discussing
Quaker beliefs).
85
Fox tells of his questioning of New England magistrates who, relying upon an unspecified
law allowing the execution of Jesuits, executed four Quakers. Fox told the magistrates they had
committed murder, because even the magistrates recognized that the Quakers were not Jesuits.
"For by this it plainly appears that you have put them to death in your own wills without any
law." Journal, supra note 64, at 414-15. See also id. at 51-55 (Fox committed to goal without
proper authority); id. at 161-63 (same). Fox recounts his preachings and travels in the fairs and
markets, where he "declare[d] against their deceitful merchandise and cheating and cozening,
warning to all to deal justly, to speak the truth, . . . and to do unto others as they would have
others do unto them." Id. at 37-38.
35
The idea of justice and equity, as dictated by the Bible, occupied a central place in Fox's
Journal. After suffering imprisonment in Derby in 1650, Fox wrote to the magistrates who
imprisoned him and asked them:
to consider what you do, and what commands of God call for. He doth require
justice and mercy, to break every yoke and to let the oppressed go free. But who
calleth for justice or loveth mercy or contendeth for the Truth? Is not judgment
turned backward and doth not justice stand afar off? Is not Truth silenced in the
streets, or can equity enter? And do not they that depart from evil make
themselves a prey? O consider what ye do in time, and take heed whom ye
imprison . . . .86
Fox also expressed concern for injustice to others. In 1651 he opposed the execution of
both men and women for mere theft of cattle or money. Again relying on the Bible, Fox
reminded justices to "mind the laws of God in the Scriptures and the Spirit that gave them forth
and let them be your rule in executing Judgment; and show mercy, that you receive mercy from
God, the judge of all." Fox pointed out that the Biblical punishment for theft of cattle was
restitution, not death, and that justices should show mercy. Lest the justices forget that they too
86
Fox, Journal, supra note 64, at 54. For a strikingly similar letter from Elizabeth Hutton,
who was imprisoned along with Fox, to the Derby Justices, see Early Quaker Writings 381-82
(Hugh Barbour ed. 1973). Fox wrote to several justices independently to remind them of God's
commands and to the mayor of Derby, reminding him that "thou art set in place to do justice; but,
in imprisoning my body, thou hast done contrary to justice, according to your own law. . . .
Remember who said, 'I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; I was in prison and ye visited me
not.'" Id. at 55. See also Edward Burrogh, Message of Instruction to All the Rulers, Judges, and
Magistrates to Whom the Law is Committed (London, 1658) (arguing that Quakers should not be
punished for following God's law rather than English law); William Penn, Summons or Call
(London, 1677) (criticizing judges); William Penn, Peoples' Ancient Liberties Asserted (London,
1670); Thomas Rudyard, The Second Part of the Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted
(London, 1671); Thomas Rudyard, The Case of Protestant Dissenters (London, 1670).
36
would be judged, Fox concluded with an allusion to judgment day: "fear God and serve him, for
he is a consuming fire."87
William Penn, who himself suffered imprisonment, postulated that there could be no
valid government without justice. In his pamphlet One Project for the Good of England, Penn
raised the specter of revolution; he argued that when government left its citizens without justice,
the citizens would be unlikely to support the government. He left it to others, such as John
Locke and Algernon Sydney, to postulate that governments that failed to operate by well-defined
rules were illegitimate.88
Pastorius adopted some of Penn's pragmatic grounds for ensuring justice. The "Justice"
entry in the Bee Hive consists largely of maxims from William Penn's Fruits of Solitude, a book
of advice Penn wrote for his children and then published in the 1690s. Penn's thoughts on
justice, which Pastorius quoted, included "Impartiality is the life of Justice, as that is of
Government" and "Justice is a great support to Society, because an Insurer to all men of their
Property. This vitiated, there's no Security, which throws all into Confusion to recover it."89
Less pragmatic reasons also supported Pastorius' call for justice, however. He simply believed
that people should treat each other justly, because it was commanded by God. "Deal Rightfully
upon earth," he warns, "that you may find heaven." Most of Pastorius' Bee Hive entry, however,
consists of general concerns about the nature of justice. He begins his entry by paraphrasing
87
Fox, supra note 64, at 66.
88
See generally Melvin Endy, William Penn and Early Quakerism (1973); Mary Maples
Dunn, William Penn: Politics and Conscience (1968).
89
Justice Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (quoting William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude,
Maxims 2:352, 2:181 (London, 1696)).
37
Penn's Fruits of Solitude, "Justice is justly represented Blind because she sees no difference in
the Parties concerned. She has but one scale and weight for the rich and poor, great and small.
Her sentence is not guided by the person, but the cause." He goes on to emphasize the need for
impartiality: "the impartial judge in judgment knows nothing but the law, the Prince no more
than the Peasant, kindred than a stranger. Nay, his enemy is said to be on equal terms with his
friend, when he is on the bench."90 Following Penn's maxims, Pastorius added, from Cicero's
Attica oration, that "None should lose his right to any thing, because another has a longer
Sword."91
Pastorius' views about law also appear in a short essay he wrote discussing the litigation
has was involved in over control of the Frankfurt Land Company, Exemplum Sine Exemplo, Or
the Cheats and the Projectors.92 The litigation arose from the attempt of Daniel Falkner and John
Henry Sprogel to obtain the right to sell the Company's land. In January 1701 the Frankfurt Land
Company directors conferred joint, not several, power of attorney on Johann Jawert and Daniel
Falkner. Falkner, according to Pastorius and Jawart, proved untrustworhty, even profligate with
the Company's money, causing Jawart to ask in April 1705 that no one conduct any of the
Company's business with Falkner. Then in November 1705 John Henry Sprogel appeared, with
an apparently forged letter giving him title to the Company's land. At the January 1708 meeting
90
Id. (citing Penn, Fruits of Solitude, supra note 89, maxims 348, 349, 351). Similarly,
Pastorius wrote in his Equity entry, "A just weight is God's delight. Prov. 11:1 with an equal and
just hand . . . on the one side & on the other square dealing upright dealing. Justice mixed with
mercy." Equity Entry, id.
91
92
Equity Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (citing Cicero, Attica Oration, 169).
See Pastorius, supra note 48.
38
of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County's civil court, Faulkner
and Sprogel appeared with two attornies and filed an ejectment action to obtain title to the
Company's land. No one contested the action, because none had notice, and the court granted the
petition. When Pastorius and Jawert appealed to the Provincial Court in March 1708 they
observed that all four lawyers in Pennsylvania had been retained by Falker and Sprogel, thus
making it impossible to obtain legal advice. Pastorius' petition further complained that ejectment
was a legal fiction "wherewith your Petitioner is altogether unacquainted." Pastorius' account of
the litigation disparagingly refered to one lawyer's role as "fictionem juris ad re ipsa detrudendos
veros possessores"--legal fiction abhors the true owner. He concluded his account of the
litigation with a universal condemnation of Sprogel, which summarized his attitude toward law
and religion:
I . . . heartily wish that the LORD (who is called a Father to the fatherless and a
Judge of Widows, whereof there are at this instant in the abovesaid Company)
may prosper their just Proceedings, and all, who reverence Righteousness and
Equity countenance them therein, and no be partakers of the Spoil, nor of the
Curse entailed thereon with the aforesaid John Henry Sprogel, for whom
notwithstanding the foregoing discovery of his unheard of Villanies I retain that
sincere Love as to pray God Almight to . . . Convert him . . . from his
Perverseness, that he may forsake his diabolical lies, pride, bragging and boasting,
and not longer continue the Vassal of Satan and heir of Hell, but become a child
of Heaven and a follower of Christ . . . [who is] meek and lowly in heart, leading
out of all cozening Practices into the way of holiness and eternal Felicity.93
Justice also had a substantive component for Pastorius. Elsewhere in the Bee Hive he
discussed the evils of exacting too much legal payment from another person and willingly
forgave the people who had extracted too much from him:
93
Id. at 174.
39
As what I have I owe to one Above, to You on Earth beneath nothing but Love/
Except some trifling sums to such as wrought for me, and those of whom I lately
bought, the which I hope I shall now shortly pay; oh, that my Debtors too the self
same way. But many wronged and wrong me while I live, to whom heartily and
Frankly [I] forgive. I willing to lay down my hand in peace, I herewith put my
hand to this Release.94
In another Poem he drew upon the Golden Rule to urge equitable dealings with others:
To do to Others as We would be done by them
This was Christ's doctrine and, if fully understood
Is the Eternal Band of Peace, the noblest Good
With this runns parallet what holy Prophets taught,
To shun the Sin as hell: Be Vertuous, and not nought.95
Pastorius was concerned with the ways to make the law serve humanist ends. He was
particularly concerned with the idea of law as incorporating certain just principles that should be
followed to the extent that they created justice.
2. Law
Pastorius recognized, as did other reformers, however, that mere ideas about justice were
insufficient to properly order society. Pastorius, therefore, invoked the Biblical aphorism that
"[t]he law is made for Disobedient Persons."96 It is unknown whether he ever read Henry Finch's
94
Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 367. Pastorius recommended reading William Perkins,
Discoverie of the damned Art of Witchcraft (1608). Perkins protested the cruelty of witchcraft
trials, which may be indicative of Pastorius' beliefs. Toms, supra note 21, at 168.
95
Bee Hive, supra note 1, at 176, stanza 331. Reliance upon the Golden Rule, Matthew 7:12,
was common. See, e.g., Fox, Journal, supra note 64, at 38; Fox, Instruction, supra note 78, at 20;
Ernst Stoefler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism 58-68 (1961) (discussing God's law in pietism);
supra note 77 (historians' discussion of Mosaic law in seventeenth-century England and
America). Cf. William Perkins, The Whole Duty of Man, Containing a Practical Table of the
Ten Commandments (London, 1674); John Dod, A Plain and Familiar Exposition of the Ten
Commandments (London, 1607).
96
Bee Hive, supra note 1, maxim 197 (citing 1 Timothy 2:10).
40
Discourse on Law, which was present in the library of Philadelphia Judge John Guest
contemporaneously with Pastorius; however, Pastorius shared Finch's belief--expressed on the
first page of his 1613 treatise--that law is designed to order society.
Pastorius began his Bee Hive entry for Law by recognizing the importance of respecting
and observing the law. As with the Justice entry, most phrases were taken from William Penn,
often from Penn's 1696 book, No Cross, No Crown, a collection of stories designed to show that
Quaker principles had existed throughout history. Pastorius' first phrase, which was taken from
Penn, referred to the Ten Commandments: "The Law He delivered to Moses upon Mount Sinai,
for a Rule to his People, the Jews, to walk by," was "confirmed by thunderings and other sensible
solemnities to strike the people with the awe of keeping it."97 Pastorius thus expressed the
common belief that a primary goal of society was to impress people with the need to follow just
laws.
Pastorius also drew upon Francis Bacon, who similarly emphasized the role of the law
and magistrates in peacekeeping in his essay "On Judicature." Pastorius adopted Bacon's belief
that the "principle duty of a Judge is to suppress Force and Fraud." Pastorius also elaborated on
the Biblical basis for such obedience in the 1698 schoolbook that he published for his students, A
New Primmer. The Primmer, which was designed for students learning to read, consisted of
passages, mostly taken from the Bible, that prescribed good behavior. Pastorius' students reading
the Primmer learned that subjects must:
97
See William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 246 (London, 1686) Wing P1328 (referring to
the prohibition of Exodus 23 on stealing); Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (quoting only the
latter part of the sentence).
41
obey magistrates, Tit. 3:1, subject themselves to every Ordinance of Man, for the
Lord's sake, 1 Pet. 213, despise not Government, [be] afraid to spread evil of
Dignitaries, 2 Pov. 2, . . . not resist the Power, Rom. 13:2, but render unto Caesar
the things which are Caesar's, and unto God things that are God's, Math. 22:21,
paying Tribute, Custom, Rom. 13:7, and making supplications for all that are in
Authority. 1 Tim. 2:2.98
There was also a strong sense in Quaker writings that the law came from God and that
each person had an intuitive sense of the law. Pastorius emphasized the source of law in his
Leges Conceptiret, written on the first page of his Germantown lawbook: "it is without authority
if not from God" and "you are given the authority by Him and the power from heaven which will
tell you how to act."99 Pastorius also quoted from George Fox's Journal that "the thunder of
Moses, the law of God is perfect and written in the heart."100 One lesson of the Journal is that
each person must follow the "pure Love of God." Following the perfect law of God--the "pure
love of God"--Fox thought, allowed people to escape from the "the law of sin and death." The
two spheres--the flesh and the spirit--continually opposed each other. They could not co-exist, so
that the pure and perfect law of God was over the flesh. By following God's law, "ye have liberty
and victory over the flesh and its works."101
98
Primmer, supra note 17, at 35.
99
See Umständige Beschreibung, supra note 17, at 50. See also 2 Connecticut Records 567
(ordering that the lawbooks print on their first page "there is no power but of God, the powers
that be are ordained of God"); Bushman, supra note 29, at 10 (discussing Connecticut's reliance
upon Bible as law).
100
Law Entry, Bee Hive (citing Fox's Journal and an unidentified "Statute of Parliament");
Fox, Journal, supra note 64, at 15-18.
101
Fox, supra note 64, at 16-17; 15-18. See also Frost, supra note 84, chap. 2.
42
Even when God gave law, it was necessary for people to follow the spirit of the law in
order to achieve justice. Pastorius quoted Paul's Letter to the Romans, "The Law is good if a
man use it lawfully."102 The idea of law incorporated one other element--that it be executed
without passion. Perhaps from Seneca, he took the maxim that "Law is reason without the
passions."103 Pastorius realized that laws might be misinterpreted. He recounted the story from
Penn's No Cross, No Crown about the Spartan leader Lycergus, who refused to allow the Laws to
be written in order to avoid barratry.104
Pastorius also recognized, however, in keeping with the most sophisticated writings on
law that there were human-made regulations as well as the God-given natural law that Fox wrote
about. He wrote in his Bee Hive entry on Law that "All laws are either fundamental and so
immutable or Superficial and so alterable."105 The dual nature of law had been recognized since
the time of Coke. Pastorius drew the idea from Penn's Ancient Liberties Asserted, a pamphlet
Penn wrote explaining his 1670 trial for sedition, in which he asserted the supremacy of the
common law over more recent statutes prohibiting preaching.
Pastorius also expressed the idea, growing in strength in the seventeenth century, that
"People should have a share in the making of their own Laws and likewise in the judicatory
102
Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1.
103
Id.
104
105
Penn, No Cross, No Crown, supra note 97, at 382.
See Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (citing Penn's Ancient Liberties, supra note 34, at
31).
43
Power to apply these laws made."106 Again, Pastorius drew upon William Penn's writings
popularizing the idea of democracy. Pastorius cited Penn's 1679 pamphlet England's Present
Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament, which Penn wrote to foster support for religious
toleration in the Parliamentary elections. In England's Present Interest, Penn argued that there
were three fundamental rights: property, legislation "or the power of making laws" and judicatory
power--"the application and execution of the laws that you agree to be made." Penn went on to
suggest that those three fundamental rights could be best protected by electing to Parliament
people who "will not sacrifice their neighbor's property to the forwardness of their own part in
religion."107 Penn was advancing the cause of democracy in general at the same time he
advanced the cause of religious toleration.
Perhaps Penn's most influential writing in America was his eighty-seven page pamphlet,
The Excellent Privilege of Liberty and Property, published by William Bradford in Philadelphia
in 1687 under the pseudonym, Philodelphius. Penn designed the Excellent Privilege to help
Pennsylvanians "who may not have leizure from their Plantations to read large Volumns" to
understand "the unparralell'd Priviledge of Liberty and Property" so that they might preserve their
rights "from unjust and unreasonable men." Penn was concerned that many colonists were
"strangers" to the rights of liberty and property and that the colonists did not have an
understanding of "the eminent Case, Wisdom and Industry of our Progenitors in providing for
themselves and Posterity so good a Fortress that is able to repel Lust, Pride and Power of the
106
See id. (citing William Penn, England's Present Interest 14, 17 (London, 1679)). Penn
further explored these ideas in The Continued Cry of the Oppressed for Justice, supra note 34.
Pastorius had a copy of Continued Cry in his library. See Pastorius' Library, supra note 34.
107
See Penn, England's Present Interest, supra note 106, at 4.
44
Noble, as well as Ignorance of the Ignoble." To inform the colonists of the "Inheritance that
every Free-born Subject of England is Heir unto by Birth-right" Penn printed five documents: the
Magna Charta, Edward I's Forrest Charter, the Statute De Tallageo non Concedendo passed
during Edward I's reign, Charles II's Charter to Pennsylvania, and Penn's Charter of Liberties.
His ultimate goal was to impress upon the readers the common law's "excellent and discreet
Ballance that gives every man his even proportion, which cannot be taken from him, nor [can he]
be dispossessed of his Life, Liberty or Estate, but by the tryal and judgment of Twelve of his
Equals, or Law of the Land, upon the penalty of the bitter Curses of the whole People." He
hoped that diffusion of knowledge about English liberties would then enable the readers to
protect their rights and thus "take up the good Example of our Ancestors, and understand, that
[it] is easie to part with or give away great Priviledges, but [they are] hard to be gained, if once
lost."108 Pastorius had a copy of the Excellent Priviledge in his library and believed with Penn in
the importance of justice and the role of law in fostering liberty.
3. The Magistrates
Englishmen of the Restoration period struggled with the question of how to create a
virtuous country. Magistrates, as the people charged with enforcing the laws and maintaining
control of society, occupied a particularly important role in English political thoughts. Penn, in
his Frame of Government, explicitly recognized the importance of virtuous authorities. "I know
that some say," Penn wrote, "let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that Execute them:
but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good Men do better; for good Laws may
want good Men, and be abolished or invaded by ill Men; but good Men will never want good
108
Penn, Excellent Priviledge, supra note 3, at i-ii.
45
Laws, nor suffer Ill Ones." Pastorius was attuned to the importance of the magistrates. He told
magistrates that "you that sit at the stern, whether of little bargues or greater ships, whether
counties or countries, you should not (like the heards of Hrael) injure Justice and pervert equity
for the love of money."
There was much in recent English history to warn about the dangers of justices selling
their positions or favoring their friends. The concept of virtuous judges was absolutely central to
Pastorius' vision as well as that of Penn and Quakers in general. Having suffered at the hands of
the capricious judges in England, who prosecuted them for their religious beliefs, Quakers were
particularly wary of the discretion accorded magistrates. Isaac Penington asked on behalf of
Quakers that
no laws formerly made contrary to the Principle of equity and rightousness in
man, may remain in force; nor new ones be made, but what are manifestly
agreeable thereunto. All just laws, say the Lawyers, have their foundation in right
reason, and must agree with, and proceed from it, if they be properly good for, and
rightly serviceable to mankind. Now man hath a corrupt and carnal Reason,
which sways him aside from Integrity and Righteousness towards the favoring of
himself and his own party; And whatever Part is uppermost, they are apt to make
such new Laws as they frame, and also the interpretation of old ones bend towards
the favor of their own party. Therefore we would have any man in Authority wait
in favor of God, to have that Principle of God raised up in him, which is for
righteousness and not selfish, and watch to be guided by that in all he does, either
in making Laws for Government or in governing by Laws already made.109
109
1 Isaac Penington, Works 326-27. See also George Fox, Quaker Testimony Concerning
Magistracy (London, 1669) Wing F1752; George Fox, Something in Answer to a law lately made
at the first sessions of the General Court (London, 1679) Wing F1911; George Fox, The
Christian Judge, so called their words judged by the holy men of God (London, 1676) Wing
1759; George Fox, The Beginning of Tithes in the law and the ending of tythes in the Gospel
(London, 1676) Wing F1752; George Fox, The Law of God the Rule of Law-makers (London,
1658) Wing F1856; Thomas Rudyard, The Second Part of the People's Ancient and Just Liberties
(London, 1670). See generally Horle, supra note 84.
Thomas Ellwood, himself a lawyer, would provide a useful study of the effect of English
criminal justice upon the thought of Quakers. Ellwood, who left an extended autobiography
46
Pastorius' concern with English political theory appears in the books that he
recommended as reading. Among the works Pastorius thought worthwhile were John Selden's
Table Talk, a work of England's great legal historian that discussed English politics; John
Barclay's Argenis, a political novel written expressly for the guidance of young Louis XIII and
then translated into English, and John Higgins, Mirrour of Magistrates, which provided advice
for rulers. One can also deduce something of Pastorius' attitudes from the books in his library.
Although one must be suspicious of making too much out of the books in a library, the
preponderance of works on pietism and Quakerism testify to Pastorius' religious beliefs. Other
books present tantalizing suggestions. He had, for instance, a copy of an account of the treason
trial of New York Governor Nicholas Bayard. Bayard was opposed by William Atwood, himself
a proponent of the Ancient Constitution and thus a supporter of Parliament's rights and,
presumably, of English rights against the crown. Despite a vigorous defense, Bayard was
sentenced to death. It remains unclear why Pastorius had the account, but it may testify to
Pastorius' sympathy with Bayard's cause.110
detailing his sufferings, published several tracts to aid Quaker defendants in the legal system.
See Thomas Ellwood, Caution to Constables (London, 1681); Thomas Ellwood, A Discourse
Concerning Riots (London, 1682); Thomas Ellwood, The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood
(London, 1714) (C.G. Crump ed. 1900).
110
See Toms, supra note 21, at 176, 166 (discussing Pastorius' recommendations); Pastorius'
Library, supra note 34. See also William Atwood, Jani Anglorum Facies Nova (London, 1680);
Eben Moglen, Considering Zenger: Partisan Politics and the Legal Profession, 94 Colum. L. Rev.
1495, 1500-02 (1994) (observing a growth in sophistication in the New York bar between
Bayard's treason trial and the Zenger trial). For an initial examination of the more than 300
books by Quakers that Pastorius consulted while compiling his Bee Hive, see Alfred L. Brophy,
The Quaker-Bibliographic World of Francis Daniel Pastorius' Bee Hive, (manuscript in
progress).
47
In his search for ways to create a virtuous magistracy, Penn turned to classical examples.
Sparta, the republic famous throughout antiquity for its self-denying and hence virtuous citizens,
occupied a central place in many of their writings. William Penn told the story in No Cross, No
Crown of "Archidemus, King of Sparta": "being askt, who was Master of Lacedemonia the laws,
saith he and after them the Magistrates." Pastorius included the story in his Bee Hive entry for
Law.111 The colonists realized that the magistrates were responsible for guiding the state. And it
was the establishment of a virtuous magistracy that occupied much of the thoughts of Quakers. If
judges began to sell their positions or favor friends, then they ran the risk of tearing down the
structure of government. Despite the warnings of Penn and Pastorius, the magistrates in
Pennsylvania were subject to reproach. Samuel Carpenter warned Penn in 1684 after the Free
Society of Traders, a joint stock company that Penn had an interest in, received favorable
treatment from the county courts.112
Virtue was important for magistrates not only because they affected people's fortunes, but
also because they served as models. Penn himself warned about the dangers in his No Cross, No
Crown. Penn included in the second part of No Cross, No Crown examples from ancient history
to illustrate his points. Pastorius copied several of Penn's examples into his Bee Hive entry for
Law. First, he used the example of Xenophanes, who was jeered for refusing to gamble. "They
that make laws must keep them saith Xenophanes" in response.113 Pastorius also took the
example of "Pericles, [who] mounting the tribunal prayed to God, not a word might fall from
111
Penn, No Cross, No Crown, supra note 97, at 382.
112
See Carpenter to Penn, Dec. 25, 1684, 2 PWP, supra note 72, at 610.
113
Penn, No Cross, No Crown, supra note 97, at 341.
48
him, that should scandalize the people, wrong the public affairs, or hurt his own."114 Penn
explained the context of Pericles' statement:
One of his friends praying him to speak falsely; we are friends, saith he, but not
beyond the Alter; meaning, not against Religion and Truth. Sophocles being his
companion, upon sight of a Beautiful woman, said to Pericles, Ah! What a lovely
creature is that! To which Pericles reply'd, It becometh a Magistrate not only to
have his hands clean, but his Tongue and Eyes also.115
Pastorius concluded with a general aphorism, that "He cannot be a competent judge of another's
crime that is guilty of the like himself." From Seneca, Pastorius added the idea that judges must
be passionless when they decide a case or pass judgment. "The Publick magistrate begins with
persuasion and his Business is, to beget a Detestation for vice, and a Veneration for Virtue: From
Thence, if need be, he advances, to Admonition, and Reproach, and then to Punishment; but
Moderate and Revocable, unless the Wickedness be incurable, and then the Punishment must be
so."116 Seneca, Pastorius, and Penn all thought that the magistrate had the duty of maintaining
control of society. When the magistrates failed to fulfill that duty, government suffered. "Where
the reins of Government are too slack," Penn warned, "there the Manners of the People are
corrupted; and that destroys Industry, begets Effiminacy, and provokes Heaven against it."117
114
Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (citing No Cross, No Crown, supra note 97, at 383).
115
Penn, No Cross No Crown, supra note 97, at 383-84.
116
Judges Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1 (quoting Robert L'Estange, Seneca's Morals 71
(London, 1696)). Pastorius also recommended L'Estange's version of The Fables of AEsop and
other Eminent Mythologists: With Moral Reflections (1692). See Toms, supra note 21, at 176.
117
Penn, Fruits of Solitude, supra, note 89, at 72. Classical ideas, such as virtue, pervaded
Penn's writings, as they did those of his contemporaries. See Dunn, supra note 88; J.G.A.
Pocock, The Machievellian Moment 333-422 (1975). One can see his reliance upon classical
models particularly well in No Cross, No Crown and in his early drafts of fundamental
constitutions of Pennsylvania. See 2 PWP, supra note 72, at 140-56.
49
The chief job of magistrates, Pastorius thought, was to uphold morals. In the New
Primmer he prepared for use by his students, Pastorius summarized the duties of magistrates.
Magistrates must, he thought:
rule in the fear of God, 2 Sam 23:3, with Diligence, Rom. 12:8, as wise and
understanding men, 2 Deut. 1:17, Know the law, Ezra 7:25, judge righteously,
respect not person, but judge the small as well as the great, Vers. 16, 17, and chap.
16-19, condemn not the just, Prov. 17 15, pervert not the judgment of the poor in
his Cause, Exod. 23:6, slay not the innocent, . . . take no Gift, Vers. 8 (Acts 24 26)
. . . not vex nor oppose the stranger, 12.9 afflict not any widow or fatherless child,
chap. 22 Isa. 1:23, do justice to the needy, defend and deliver him, Pal. 82:3, stem
and passions Zech. 7:9, justify not the wicked for reward, Isa. 5:23, but rebuke
him, Prov. 24, 23, execute wrath upon evil Doers, Rom. 13:3,4, that good men
may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all goodness and honesty. 1 Tim 2:2, [be]
blameless themselves, John 8:3, [and] not d[o] the same things. Rom 2:1.118
Related to this is Pastorius' statement that judges should interpret and not make law, taken
from Lord Bacon's Essays. Pastorius begins his entry on Judges by quoting Bacon: "Their proper
virtue is integrity; their office not to make Law, but to interpreting Law." Bacon continued: "Else
it will be like the Authority, claimed by the Church of Rome; which under the pretext of
Exposition of Scripture, doth not sticke to Adde and Alter; And to pronounce that, which they
doe not Finde; And by Shew of Antiquity, to introduce Novelty."119 Pastorius meant that judges
should be bound by the law; otherwise, they would not maintain integrity, because they would
substitute their own thoughts for the law and in that way introduce improper results.
118
Pastorius, A New Primmer, supra note 17, at 34.
119
See Judges Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1; Francis Bacon, Of Judicature, Essays 316
(London, 1654); Daniel R. Coquillette, Lord Bacon 192-94 (1992) (discussing Bacon's "Of
Judicature" essay).
50
Pastorius believed that magistrates should be obeyed. "By nature it is ordained that the
better command the worse"120 and magistrates were some of the superiors who ought to be
obeyed. Nevertheless, just as Lord Bacon had written, Pastorius thought that "the Magistrate is
bound to act according to the law, and not to set up his Will in the stead thereof."121 He
concluded the Bee Hive entry on magistrates with the stern warning that "A good Government is
a ship and [a] Magistrate [is a] shipmaster, that takes the shortest and safest course, but a wicked
Magistrate is a wolf made leader of the fold. [He] Will not protect us in our lives, liberties and
estates."122
--Although he opposed the use of law to extract undue advantage from an adversary, like
others interested in legal reform in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Pastorius was
concerned with the payment of just debts. He also believed that the courts should be used to
120
Magistrates Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1. Quaker writings were frequently addressed to
magistrates, as the people who carried the power to enforce the laws. George Fox's Journal, for
example, contained numerous instances of his addresses to magistrates. See, e.g., Fox, Journal,
supra note 64, at 45, 435. But magistrates could do only so much; religion also served to
condition people to accept their place. Id. at 90. We need further study of the way that Quakers'
experiences in England conditioned them to adopt religious
tolerance and focus attention on "justice" as a key element of good government. And in turn the
way that those attitudes influenced the subsequent development of a revolutionary
constitutionalism in the American colonies. A beginning appears in Horle, supra note 84 and
William Offutt, Of Good Laws and Good Men: Law and Community in the Delaware Valley,
1680-1710 (1995), which look at how Quakers' treatment by the English legal system influenced
their beliefs. See generally Alan Heimert, Religion and the American Mind from Great
Awakening to Revolution (1966) (tracing influence of religious beliefs on American Revolution);
Christopher Hill, Ideological Origins of the English Revolution (1960) (tracing the influences of
religion and the social surroundings on English political thought).
121
See Magistrates Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1.
122
Id.
51
enforce just debts. Some Quakers suggested that one should never resort to law suits.123
Pastorius explicitly sided with those Quakers supporting use of the legal system to compel
payment of fair debts and to punish wrongdoers.124
Concern over the payment of debts likewise occupied an important place in Pastorius'
thinking. He began his discussion of "Debt," by imploring "Christians, you owe love to one
another. Will ye not be honest men and pay your debt." And then, quoting Penn's Fruits of
Solitude, he warned do not "ruin him to get that which will not ruin thee to lose." Nevertheless,
he concluded that one should pay one's debt. "Whatever we owe, it's our part to pay it; for
whether the Creditor be good or bad, the Debt is still the same."125 His final warning was to stay
out of debt completely: "he that cannot pay, let him pray; he is rich who has no debt."126 Thus,
while many of Pastorius' writings concern the need for justice, fair dealing, love and peace, he
recognized simultaneously the need for strict enforcement of law and the duty of both magistrates
123
Daniel Leeds, New England's Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to Pennsylvania 82-83, 90
(New York, 1699) (suggesting that Quakers should never sue at law).
124
See Caleb Pusey, Satan's Harbinger Refuted (Philadelphia, 1699) (refuting Leeds' claim
that Quakers should avoid lawsuits). Given Pastorius' heavy reliance upon other pietists and
Quakers in the Bee Hive, one might look to their writings, as well as English legal reformers, for
further elaboration of the ideas that Pastorius expressed. Pastorius' entry for Magistrates cited
Pusey to show that law suits were appropriate. He
thereby avoided the tendency of Pietists to move entirely away from law. See A.G. Roeber,
Palatines, Liberty, and Property chap. 3 (1993) (discussing Pietism, Christian liberty, and the
problem of worldly goods); Der Hoch-Deutsch Americanische Calender (Christopher Saur ed.
1749) (opposing use of courts).
125
Penn, Fruits, supra note 89, maxim 43. Like other German and English writers of his
time, he opposed luxury and ostentatious displays. For example, he criticized "A lawyer with a
bushy powdered whig on his head," citing 1 Corinthians 11:14 and Revelations 9:8." Bee Hive,
supra note 1, supplement sec. 27. See also Seneca Morals, supra note 116, at 46.
126
Debt Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1.
52
and those they governed to follow the law. It is the specific legal structure established in
Pennsylvania that Pastorius' Young Country Clerk's Collection illustrates well.
IV
The Young County Clerk's Collection and English Law
A.
Seventeenth-Century English Legal Treatises in Pennsylvania
The types of treatises available in early Pennsylvania mirrored the distinctions between
Pastorius' writings on justice, law, and magistrates that appeared in his Bee Hive and those on
practical law that appeared in the Young Country Clerk's Collection. There were a few books in
early Pennsylvania that discussed law in substantive terms with wide-ranging statements about
the nature of English law and justice, such as Henry Finch's Law, or a Discourse Thereof,
Bacon's Essays, Coke's Institutes, Penn's Excellent Priviledge of Liberty and Property and his
Ancient Liberties Asserted, John Selden's Table Talk and Henry Care's English Liberties.
Pastorius' library included some such books, as well as a number of religious books that
discussed law, such as George Fox's Journal and Jacob Spener's Pia Desideria.127
There were also a significant number of sophisticated works detailing English and
colonial statutes, such as The Laws of Jamaica and Edmund Wingate's Abridgement of all the
Statutes in force. Works on civil law, such as John Cowell's Interpreter and Schütz'
127
See Edwin Wolf, The Library of a Philadelphia Judge, 79 Penn. Mag. Hist. & Bio. 180-91
(1959) [hereafter Guest's Library] (listing books in Judge John Guest's library); Pastorius's
library, supra note 34. One of the areas in which historians of colonial America have expanded
our knowledge the most in recent years is that of books. We now know a substantial amount
about what early Americans read and hence have increased our ability to see the world in the way
that they did. Mr. Wolf has contributed probably as much as any other individual to expansion of
knowledge of what lawyers read. See Edwin Wolf, The Book Culture of a Colonial American
City: Philadelphia Books, Bookman, and Booksellers 131-63 (1988) (discussing law books
available in early Philadelphia) [hereafter Book Culture of Philadelphia].
53
Compendium Iuris, as well as reports of cases in both the Chancery and the common law courts
also appeared in Pennsylvania libraries.128 Sometime near the beginning of the eighteenth
century, lawyers such as James Logan, Penn's secretary and later a Justice in Philadelphia, and
Ralph Asheton, a lawyer who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1708, built extensive libraries of
dozens of law books, advising on highly technical areas of the complicated English law, as well
as on more abstract topics of political philosophy. Logan kept up a steady correspondence with
Pastorius, so it is likely that Pastorius had access to Logan's law books, to the extent that they
interested him.129
One also finds a healthy collection of "practical" legal treatises in early Pennsylvania. A
number of important books known to be in Pennsylvania contemporaneous with Pastorius
consisted largely of forms for pleadings in court. Such books included Richard Brownlow's
Book of Entries and John Herne's The Pleader. There were also books aiding in land transactions
such as William Style's The Practical Register and Robert Gardiner, Ars Clericals: the Art of
Conveyancing, which included both forms for land transactions and explanations of the law of
property. Other books combined some forms with discussion of substantive law. Those largely
discussed the powers of the local courts and justices of the peace, such as John Kitchen's
Jurisdictions and Richard Chamberlain, The Complete Justice. Chamberlain's manual, which
128
See Wolf, Guest's Library, supra note 127; Pastorius' Library, supra note 34.
129
Edwin Wolf, The Library of James Logan of Philadelphia, 1674-1751 (1974) (describing
each book in Logan's library); Catalogus Bibliothecae Loganianae . . . (Philadelphia, 1760)
(catalog of Logan's library); Edwin Wolf, The Library of Ralph Ashton, Penn. Mag. Hist. & Bio.
319-26 (1964). Pastorius recommended reading Hugh Grotius. Pastorius to Lloyd Zachary,
Letterbook, Dec. 1718, HSP.
54
was in Pastorius' library, consisted of an alphabetical listing of issues facing justices, from
Abjuration through Women. It advised justices of their powers and jurisdiction.130
There were, finally, three practical volumes that proved particularly influential on
Pastorius because he drew upon them in compiling the Collection: Richard Hill's Young Clerk's
Guide, Edward Cocker's Young Secretaries Guide and John Hill's Young Clerk's Tutor. The
Young Clerk's Guide and the Young Secretaries Guide consisted largely of forms for land
transactions and contracts; the Young Clerk's Tutor contained no forms for land transactions
other than testamentary and inter vivos gifts, but had ample contracts and some forms writs as
well as forms for use outside of court.
B.
The Young Country Clerk's Collection
The Young Country Clerk's Collection nearly two hundred pages of closely-written
manuscript begins with a grand title: "The Young Country Clerk's Collection of the best
Presidents of Bills, Bonds, Conditions, Acquittances, Releases, Indentures, Deeds of Sale, Letters
of Attorney, Last Wills and Testaments &c With many other necessary and useful Forms of such
Writings as are vulgarly in use between Man and Man."131 It certainly lives up to its billing; the
Collection consists largely of forms for land transactions, contracts and writs for operation of the
courts.
The Collection devoted much space to forms for operation of the courts. From
commissions to justices, to presentments for violating laws, to summons to appear, to
recognizances, Pastorius' book included all the forms that were necessary for a court to operate.
130
See Guest's Library, supra note 127; Pastorius' Library, supra note 34.
131
YCCC, supra note 2, at 201.
55
There were ample forms for insuring the functioning of Pennsylvania society, including a petition
to the court from a family who had lost their house to fire, a petition to the Queen to restore
Pennsylvania's charter, and several letters to William Penn, the proprietor, to grant residents of
Germantown additional privileges. Pastorius even had sample notices of lost animals and
runaway servants and numerous forms for letters to parents, relatives, friends, and business
associates. He also included a table of regnal years and a page of models for bookkeeping. Near
the end of the manuscript, he also added about forty pages of sample letters, apparently largely
taken from the Young Secretary's Guide. Real property took up most of the space in private law;
more than twenty manuscript pages were devoted to real property. Contracts took up more than
fifteen pages.
The Collection was apparently written over a period of time, from around 1698 through
about 1715. Many of the pleadings refer to dates from 1690 through 1703.132 Other references
suggest a later date. Pastorius refers to Queen Anne's Address on the Union of England and
Scotland, which took place in 1707. The Address is quoted near the end of the book, so he may
have written the bulk of it earlier, perhaps much earlier than 1707; likewise, his petition to the
Queen on behalf of the Pennsylvania Charter suggests a date around 1710. Moreover, his table of
regnal years seems to have been completed in Queen Anne's reign, with the entries for George I
and II added later.133
132
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 214 (double bond dated 1690); 249 (sale of land dated 1700);
250 (agreement about payment of land dated 1701); 285 (land sale dated 1703).
133
Id.
56
One is left wondering why, given the extraordinary investment of time involved in
writing the Collection, the manuscript was never published. One suspects that Pastorius planned
to publish the manuscript, as he had his New Primmer, which he prepared for use by his students.
The Collection could stand on its own as a general treatise, because it contains information of
general use such as personal names, fictitious names, a table for computing interest, a table of
regnal years, and forms for letters, which he compiled largely out of the Young Secretaries
Guide. Given his integration of definitions of legal terms with precedents, it appears that he
intended the manuscript for learning the basics of law. He may even have had thoughts about
using the Collection with his students.134 Perhaps the lack of a printer in Pennsylvania in the first
years of the eighteenth century accounts for Pastorius' failure to publish the manuscript.
Pastorius wrote in a period in which even the most basic documents, such as the statutes passed
by the General Assembly, remained in manuscript form.135 For whatever reason, the book was
never published and Pennsylvanians were left without books providing them legal counsel on
Pennsylvania law. The first practical legal treatise published in Pennsylvania was Conductor
Generalis, printed by William Bradford in 1722, two years after Pastorius' death, and that was
merely a reprint of the English justice of the peace manual by the same name. It was not until
134
See Pastorius, New Primmer, supra note 17. Professor Learned, author of an excellent
biography of Pastorius, hypothesized that Pastorius may have used the Collection to teach law to
his students. See Learned, supra note 2, at 272.
135
After W illiam Bradford fled to New York in 1693 in the wake of the Keithian controversy, in which
Bradford he was prosecuted for printing books without identifying himself as the publisher, Philadelphia lacked a
printer until 1707. See 3 PW P, supra note 72, at 639. Until 1714, there was no printed copy of the laws, only an
abstract, see Abstract or Abridgement, supra 3; Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania, supra note 3. Pastorius made
due with a manuscript copy of the laws. See supra note 34, 70.
57
1761 that David Henderson published his Des Landsman Advocat, a German-language handbook
on Pennsylvania law, that German speakers had counsel in their own language.136
In order to make the treatise as accessible as possible, it had three detailed indexes. The
first, located at the front of the manuscript, indexed the forms in the main portion of his treatise.
Appendix I prints part of the title page and the first table of contents, with Pastorius' notations to
indicate where he obtained each precedent. The second index, known as the "Universal Index",
was apparently written after he completed the treatise. It referred to both the forms in his treatise
and to other forms found in English law books. The third index, called the "Supplement," is only
a page long; it was likely added sometime after the main portion of the manuscript was
completed.137
1.
Sources
On the first page of The Young Country Clerk's Collection, Pastorius explains that there
are four sources of his treatise: John Hill's Young Secretaries Guide, Edward Cocker's Young
Clerks Tutor, Richard Hill's Young Clerk's Guide, and Pastorius' own former precedents.
Pastorius drew freely on the three treatises. In the body of the text, he cited the Clerks Tutor
nearly forty times, the Secretaries Guide more than thirty times, and the voluminous Clerks
Guide, the most comprehensive and sophisticated of the three, nearly thirty times. In many
136
See Conductor Generalis, supra note 5; Pastorius had a copy of the English version of
Conductor Generalis in his library. See Pastorius' Library, supra note 34. David Henderson, Des
Landsman Advocat (Philadelphia, 1761). For detailed discussion of the diffusion of knowledge
about English law in the German community, see Roeber, supra note 124, at 184-205.
137
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 361-71 ("Universal" index); id. at 372, 314 (Supplemental
index).
58
instances, he drew his forms nearly verbatim out of the books.138 At other times he merely cited
the works to show that further elaborations were available in the treatises. He also drew upon
precedents given to him by others in Pennsylvania. Charles Brockden, a lawyer with a large
collection of English law books, was credited with furnishing at least one precedent. Brockden
in turn had apparently derived many of his precedents from his English law books, suggesting
that Pennsylvanians drew upon their English legal heritage frequently. George Lowther, another
Philadelphia lawyer, supplied several precedents, and William Clark, a Justice of Sussex County
who at one time served as speaker of the General Assembly, furnished one precedent. Another
precedent, a mittemus from Queens County, Long Island, shows that Pastorius' circle of
contributors stretched far and that legal knowledge was communicated between New York and
Pennsylvania.139
Pastorius also included a comprehensive index at the end of the work, which referred the
reader to additional precedents in the Young Secretaries Guide, the Young Clerk's Tutor, and the
Young Clerk's Guide. In introducing the comprehensive index, Pastorius observed that "Whereas
there is almost a numberless number of such like Legal Writings (as in the former part of this
Book you may See a pretty many) all which to transcribe I had neither time, paper, will, nor
patience enough, therefore know yee that this following Table shall direct you where to find
138
See Appendix I, II (showing Pastorius' citations to the treatises). The citation frequencies
do not include citations to the treatises in Pastorius' Universal Index.
139
See Wolf, Book Culture of Philadelphia, supra note 127, at 141 (discussing Brockden's
library, which consisted of at least 24 titles); YCCC, supra note 2, at 315 (Brockden precedent);
257 (Clark precedent); 285 (Lowther precedent); 257 (precedent from Queens County, Long
Island).
59
abundance of them."140 He shows that he consciously thought of his manuscript as building upon
the English law books by beginning the pagination of his work at 200, noting that "the previous
199 pages are in Edward Crook's Young Secretaries Guide."141
It is by comparing Pastorius' manuscript to the English law books upon which he drew
that one gains a sense of where Pastorius' work was original and where it was derrivative. Table
1 shows the relative space devoted to each area by Pastorius' manuscript and his two most often
cited sources, Edward Cocker's Young Clerk's Tutor and John Hill's Young Secretaries Guide. It
shows that Pastorius had a balance between contracts, property and forms for operation of the
courts that the other two lacked. The Collection devoted proportionally more space to property
than the Secretaries Guide and proportionally less space to contracts than either the Secretaries
Guide or the Clerks Tutor, although he maintained the essential contract forms. The Collection,
one suspects, had a broader usefulness than any of the three treatises that he drew upon. Once he
completed his work, it was useful to justices of the peace as well as clerks wanting to transfer
land, write a will, or write contracts for sale of goods and services.
2.
The Structure of Pastorius' Collection
Historians have learned a substantial amount about legal systems and the minds of those
who inhabit the legal systems by examining the contents of legal treatises.142 Examination of
140
141
YCCC, supra note 2, at 361.
See id. unnumbered introductory page.
142
See, e.g., Daniel Boorstin, The Mysterious Science of the Law (1948); Robert Cover,
Tucker's Blackstone, 70 Colum. L. Rev. 1475 (1970) (discussing Henry St. George Tucker's 1803
edition of Blackstone's Commentaries and Tucker's extensive glosses); Duncan Kennedy, The
Structure of Blackstone's Commentaries, 28 Buffalo L. Rev. 205 (1979); Alan Watson, The
Structure of Blackstone's Commentaries, 97 Yale L.J. 795 (1988) (responding to Kennedy's
60
treatises adds a further dimension to our knowledge of colonial American legal systems, which is
based largely on studies of court records.143 Examination of court records is valuable for
showing some points of contention in a society and how the courts resolved disputes, but it
cannot tell us much about legal procedures that do not involve suits, such as contracts and land
transactions. Legal treatises, on the other hand, are valuable because they tell us about the issues
important to their authors and they can give excellent overviews of a legal system, even though
they may fail to tell us much about patterns of dispute within a community. Particularly with a
treatise compiled by a participant in the legal system under study, the contents illuminate much
thesis and pointing out that Blackstone took his structure from Justinian's Institutes). Professor
Charles Donahue's lectures on the structure of Athelbert's Code and of Glanville first suggested
to me the profitability of structural analysis.
143
Historians have quite profitably mined court records to see the issues of importance to the
legal/court system, see, e.g., Eben Moglen, Settling the Law: Legal Development in Colonial
New York (Ph.D. diss. Yale University, 1992); William M. Offutt, Law and Social Cohesion in a
Plural Society: The Delaware Valley, 1680-1720 (Ph.D. Diss. Johns Hopkins University, 1987);
Alfred L. Brophy, "For the Preservation of the King's Peace and Justice": Community and
English Law in Sussex County, Pennsylvania, 1682-1696, forthcoming, American Journal of
Legal History (1995). For a comprehensive bibliography of the wealth of outstanding work done
in this area in other colonial American colonies, see Peter Hoffer, Law and People in Colonial
America (1992).
61
about the surrounding legal system.144 Pastorius' treatise is particularly valuable because it shows
what he believed were the most important elements of Pennsylvania law.
Historians of colonial American law are familiar with the range of law books that were
available in early America. They have not sufficiently examined the contents of those books in
relation to the law as practiced in early America, however; nor have they always known what
parts of the books the colonists read.145 Pastorius' manuscript is exciting because he frequently
144
Many of the earliest legal treatises published in America were little more than direct
copies of English treatises. See Hill, Young Clerk's Guide, supra note 5; William Blackstone,
Commentaries (Philadelphia, 1771-73); Eben Moglen, Taking the Fifth: Reconsidering the
Origins of the Constitutional Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, 92 Mich. L. Rev. 1086, 109799 (1992) (mining legal treatises printed in early America for evidence of self-incrimination law).
When Americans set out to remold English law books for use in America, as Henry St. George
Tucker did in 1803 with Blackstone's Commentaries, their results are extraordinarily illuminating
about both the mind of the Americans and the state of American law. See Cover, supra note 142.
See also Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Law Miscellanies (Philadelphia, 1813); see also John H.
Langbein, Chancellor Kent and the History of Legal Literature, 93 Colum. L. Rev. 547-94
(1993).
Professor Alan Watson has judiciously cautioned against too heavy reliance on legal
treatises as representations of the reality of the legal system under study. See Watson, supra note
142; Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law (2nd ed. 1993); The Comity of
Errors: Justice Story and the Conflict of Laws (1992) (reminding that Story drew his conflicts
jurisprudence from continental writers). Moreover, Professor Watson has made solid arguments
that significant portions of a legal system's rules may be borrowed and thus have little if any
relationship to the society of which they are a part. See generally Alan Watson, Slave Law in the
Americas (1989). Nevertheless, a legal treatise that is compiled by a participant in the legal
system of which he is writing will likely reflect the author's perception about the reality of the
legal system.
145
In recent years there has been a proliferation of knowledge about the contents of early
American libraries of lawyers and non-lawyers alike. See, e.g., Wolf, Book Culture of
Philadelphia, supra note 127, chap. 5; Richard Beale Davis, A Colonial Southern Bookshelf:
Reading in the Eighteenth Century 24-69 (1979); W. Hamilton Bryson, Law Books in Colonial
Virginia, A Census (1979); Jon Butler, William Teackle's 333 Books, 49 Wm. & Mary Q. 449-91
(1992); Lawrence B. Custer, William Cumming: A Colonial Lawyer and
His Library, 3 J. Southern L. Hist. 221-40 (1994). We know what some judges and lawyers read
from their notebooks and collected papers. See William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World,
1676-1701: The Fitzhugh Letters and Other Documents (Richard Beale Davis ed., 1963); Samuel
62
tells us where he has obtained his precedents. We can also see how he distilled English law for
use in Pennsylvania.
Following the introductory page and index, Pastorius proceeds to notices, such as
advertisements for lost animals and servants, then to Notes, certificates of marriage, letters of
attornies, bonds and awards, and land transactions. He then shifts to warrants, releases, petitions,
land sales again, mittimus, and miscellaneous other forms and index. It appears as though
Pastorius tried to group similar forms together, as had been done in the Young Secretaries Guide.
As the size of the treatise grew, however, his plans were foiled. This hypothesis is supported by
Pastorius' heavy reliance upon the English treatises--particularly the Young Secretaries Guide
and the Young Clerks Tutor in the first fifty pages of the Collection. After the initial fifty pages,
however, the Collection draws only infrequently upon the English treatises. It relies upon forms
that Pastorius encountered either as a justice or as a clerk. One suspects that he intended to have
the forms appear in an orderly fashion--initial notices first, followed by bills and contracts, then
land transactions, and finally forms for operation of the court, such as warrants. A complete
table of contents appears in Appendix II, which further illuminates the structure of the
Collection. Appendix III prints a small portion of the Collection.
C.
Pennsylvania Law and The Young Country Clerk's Collection
The treatise allows us to see the several areas of Pennsylvania law and government that
concerned Pastorius and allows a comparison between Pennsylvania and English law. The
Sewell's Diary (M. Halsey Thomas ed., 1973). See also David Hall Days of Wonder, Days of
Judgment chap. 5 (reconstructing Sewell's life and thoughts based on his journal); A.G. Roeber,
Faithful Magistrates and Republican Lawyers chap. 2 (1984) (mining William Fitzhugh's journal
for evidence of nature of the law).
63
treatise is particularly illuminating about the state of real property, contract and criminal
procedure. It shows that Pennsylvania law followed closely many aspects of English law and
suggests that early Pennsylvaniaians “settled” the intellectual domain of law in American using
English legal ideas.146
1.
Real Property
The Young Country Clerk's Collection contains more than twenty pages of forms for land
transactions. It includes simple forms for absolute sales, taken directly from the Young Clerk's
Tutor and Young Clerk's Guide as well as more complicated forms for land sales, mortgages,
leases, and releases of land and quitrents.
a.
Sale of Land and Mortgages
Beginning in 1683, Pennsylvania statute provided a simple format for land transactions.147
Pennsylvania's reform of the notoriously complicated English law of land transactions is one of
the triumphs of the Pennsylvania legislature and of the reformers of English law. The land law,
in particular, attracted the attention of Quaker reformers. One E.B., perhaps the prominent
Quaker Edward Burroughs, advocated in 1659 in The Mite of Affection the abolition of "all
servile Tenures or Copy holds . . . being the badge or yoke of the Norman Conquest."148 Penn
presented practical reasons as well as political ones for his requirement of recording of land
146
Eben Moglen’s wonderful forthcoming study, Settling the Law: Colonial New York,16501776 , explains in detail the process by which the intellectual territory of the law was settled. I
have drawn upon his insightful work in thinking about the contribution of Pastorius.
147
The legislature was apparently motivated by concerns that land transactions in England
were too complicated. See Chap. 78, in 1 Statutes at Large, supra note 70, at 146-47.
148
E.B., The Mite of Affection 1 (London, 1659).
64
transactions. "To prevent frauds and vexatious suits," Penn wrote, "all charters, gifts, grants, and
conveyances of land (except leases for a year or under) . . . shall be enrolled or registered in the
public enrollment office." He went on to require "all deeds, grants, and conveyances of land . . .
shall be enrolled or registered . . . within six months next after the making thereof . . . else to be
void in law against all persons whatsoever."149 But that was soon changed when many people
found it a hardship to register the transaction. Benjamin Furly, a prominent Quaker and adviser to
Penn, commenting from Rotterdam in 1682 on Penn's proposed constitution and laws for his
colony, advised that "a form of deed be agreed upon that's short and plain, that we not be bound
by the tricks of the lawyers of England." He also suggested that land transactions be made in
open court.150 Quakers were joined in their criticism of the land law by other reformers in
seventeenth century England. William Sheppard, one of the most important and influential
advocates of law reform and author of the most widely read legal treatise proposing reform,
England's Balm, suggested standardizing forms for conveyances and establishing public registries
for landholders.151
149
Law 20, Laws Agreed Upon in England, in William Penn and the Founding of
Pennsylvania, 1680-1684: A Documentary History 128, 130 (Jean R. Soderlund ed. 1983); but
see Chap. 190, in 1 Statutes at Large supra note 56, at 172-73 (extending period for recording
land) and Law about Recording Deeds, May 31, 1693, in id. at 202 (removing requirement that
deeds be registered, but providing that “deeds and writings as shall be Enrouled or Registered in
the rouls office and the exemplification of the records of the same in all Courts of Judicature
shall be allowed and judged as valled as the original.”) I wish to thank Barbara Weir and Laurie
Rofini of the Chester County Archives for sharing their knowledge of the mechanics of early land
transfers with me.
150
Benjamin Furly, Critique of the Frame of Government, 1682, 2 PWP, supra note 72, at
229, 230.
151
William Sheppard, The President of Presidents. Or, one general president for common
assurances by deeds (London, 1655) (advocating standard forms for conveyances as a way of
65
In keeping with Pennsylvania law, several of Pastorius' sample forms for land sales were
simple, although not as simple as permitted by statute.152
There are more complicated forms,
however. His first land sale form occupies five pages, the longest of any in his book. It
contained a number of intricate clauses, providing for a description of the parties and the land
involved, reciting the chain of title of the land from William Penn, with detailed words of grant
and warranties, as well as a habendum clause. It followed the popular form for land sale in
England. Pastorius may have compiled it largely from clauses in the Young Clerk's Guide, or
from deeds in use in Pennsylvania, which in turn might have been taken from such popular books
as the Modern Conveyancer or Ars Clericus.153
Another popular method of land sale in seventeenth century England, indeed probably the
most popular, was the lease and release. To convey by lease and release, the grantors first put the
grantees into possession of the property through a lease, usually for six months or one year. The
next day, the grantors, having seised the grantees, executed a release of all their interests in the
land to the grantees (now lessees). The grantees' future interest in the land merged with their
securing property rights); Matthews, supra note 77, at 119 (discussing Sheppard's advocacy of
county deed registries). See generally G.B. Warden, Law Reform in England and New England,
1620-1660, 37 William & Mary Q. 668-90 (1982).
152
See A Short Form of Sale of Land, YCCC, supra note 2, at 249 (Appendix III, Form A-7);
Sale of Land Entailed, id. (Appendix III, Form A-8); Chap. 78, in 1 Statutes at Large, supra note
56, at 146-47 (prescribing format for land transactions and limiting estates to those of
inheritance--fee simple--life, and years).
153
YCCC, supra note 2, at 235-239 (Appendix III, Form A-1). See Young Clerk's Guide,
supra note 34, at 158-64; Ars Clericus: The Art of Conveyancing, 35-96 (London, 2nd ed. 1696)
(discussing parts of deeds); Modern Conveyancer: Or Conveyancing Improved 144-51 (London,
2d ed. 1696) ("A Bargain and Sale of Lands by Deed Inrolled"); William Shepherd, The
Touchstone of Common Assurances (London, 1660) (discussing real property law and suggesting
reforms).
66
present possessory right in the land, creating a fee simple in the grantees.154 The lease and release
method offered several advantages over the traditional grant. First, it allowed the parties to avoid
the Statute of Enrollments and therefore allowed parties to transfer land without making a public
record of the transaction. That advantage was initially not present in Pennsylvania, where the
legislature required that all transactions be recorded, although it soon proved important because
in 1693 the legislative removed the requirement that all deeds be recorded. A related advantage
was that lease and release made livery of seissen unnecessary. Pastorius devotes an entire page
to discussion of feoffment and livery of seissen, taken from the Young Clerk's Tutor. Pastorius
concludes, "[i]nstead of this Livery here in Pennsylvania Deeds are delivered and acknowledged
(in Open Court of Record . . .) before a Justice of the Peace or now by Lease and Release."155
The lease and release also allowed grantees to create a settlement of uses. The common
law prevented the creation of uses on uses. Thus, A seized to the use of Blackacre could not in
turn create a use on Blackacre, nor could A sell Blackacre to B to the use of C. A could,
however, release Blackacre to B, to the use of C.156 Pennsylvanians might take advantage of the
ability to make settlements with the lease and release; however, they seem to have rarely used
lease and release for settlement, perhaps because uses were themselves rare.
154
See 2 Blackstone, Commentaries *324-25 (Oxford, 1766) (discussing release); id. app. II,
ii-xii (forms for conveyance by lease and release); Modern Conveyancer, supra note 153, at 1314, 339-41 (describing lease and release and form for release); Ars Clericus, supra note 153, at
332-35. See also Simpson, supra note 156, at 188-90 (discussing lease and release); 6A Powell
on Real Property sec. 895A (Patrick J. Rohan ed. 1994 ed.) (same).
155
YCCC, supra note 2, at 248 2d. The notation "or now by Lease and Release" appears to
have been added after the rest of the sentence.
156
A. W. Brian Simpson, A Short History of the Land Law 190 (2nd ed. 1986).
67
Pastorius includes several forms providing for the lease and release. He explains how the
lease and release operates in regard to the Statute of Uses. One must be put into possession "To
the Intent and purpose that by vertue hereof and of the Statute made for transforming Uses into
possession, [the grantee] may be in actual possession of the . . . land, hereditaments and premises
. . . and be enabled to take and accept of a Release."157 The placement of some of the forms for
lease and release at the end of the manuscript suggests that they may have been added when it
became apparent that Pennsylvanians were making use of the forms.158
--Other land transactions were not so simple. A significant number of Pennsylvanians
financed their purchase of land through mortgages.159 English law provided several ways of
mortgaging property. One of the most popular mortgage procedures, known as the classical
common law mortgage, required that the purchaser (mortgagor) convey the property to the
mortgagee, with a clause terminating the deed to the mortgagee when the mortgage was satisfied.
Sometimes the conveyance to the mortgagee included a provision for the mortgagor to remain
157
YCCC, supra note 2, at 320 (Appendix III, Form A-25). See also id. at 264; 277,6th;
277,7th-281; Young Clerk's Guide, supra note 34, at 261 (form for lease and release). Pastorius'
commentary on the virtues of the lease and release is similar to that appearing in the legal
literature. See Modern Conveyancer, supra note 153, at 14.
158
For uses of lease and release in Pennsylvania land records, see Donna B. Munger,
Pennsylvania Land Records: A History and Guide for Research 40-42 (1991) (discussing use of
lease and release). Cf. Gary B. Nash, City Planning and Political Tension in the Seventeenth
Century: The Case of Philadelphia, 112 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 5473 (1968) (discussing extent of land sales in Philadelphia); Mary Schweitzer, Custom and
Contract: Pennsylvania, 1681-1776, 89-113 (1987) (discussing land sales in Pennsylvania).
159
See Gary B. Nash, Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania, 1681-1720 60, 91 (1968)
(reporting that land speculation and debt were rampant in Pennsylvania); Schweitzer, supra note
158, at 145, 153-54 (identifying the significance of mortgages in early Pennsylvania).
68
on the property, at other times a separate lease with the mortgagee as landlord and mortgagor as
tenant was necessary.160 Pastorius included the appropriate forms for the classical common law
mortgage. In one form, he provided for a mortgagor to convey his land to the mortgagee and
then make yearly payments to the mortgagee. When the mortgage was paid, then "this deed shall
cease, termine and become utter void and to no effect." He also supplied several contracts to
require the owner to reconvey the property to the lessee, or mortgagor, upon satisfaction.161
Probably even more popular than the classical form of mortgage was granting of a longterm lease to the mortgagee. Under the long-term lease mortgage, the mortgagor (purchaser)
granted a lease to the mortgagee, with provision that the mortgagor retain possession until he (the
mortgagor) defaulted. The deed also provided that the lease would be void when the mortgage
160
See 7 William Holdsworth, A History of English Law 375-76 (2nd ed. 1937) (describing
mechanics of mortgages and noting that standard form had been developed by fifteenth century);
Simpson, supra note 156, at 242-44 (describing classical common law mortgage). See also
Modern Conveyancer, supra note 153, at 122, 311 (describing mechanics of mortgages and
providing forms).
161
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 283 (classical common law mortgage, printed in Appendix III,
Form A-18); 240/2d (an indenture of recovery); 241; 240 (form drawn from the Young Clerk's
Tutor for a recognizance (receipt) showing that the mortgage was satisfied). See Young Clerks
Tutor, supra note 34, at 156-58 (classical common law mortgage). Pastorius provided a form for
a related mortgage, which delivered the deed to the mortgagor only when the last payment was
made, two years after the sale of land. The mortgagor was liable on a £74 penal bond if he failed
to convey his title when the final payment was received. See YCCC, supra note 2, at 250. In
another mortgage, Pastorius provided a deed of defeasance between a widow and her mortgagee,
an Ironmaker. The deed stated that if the widow paid the mortgage money with interest, then the
deed she had used to convey to the Ironmaker would be void. Id. at 283 (variant of classical
common law mortgage, printed in Appendix III, Form A-19).
69
was satisfied. Pastorius included one long-term lease mortgage, perhaps based on the three
works that he drew upon.162
English law also provided a simpler mortgage process, which did not involve the sale or
transfer of legal title to the mortgagee and then the lease-back to the mortgagee pending payment
of the mortgage. The simpler mortgage required a contract providing that the mortgagee had a
lien on the mortgagor's property. Such mortgages, which were growing in popularity in England,
had the advantage of ease of execution and insured that the mortgagee would own the property
upon payment, without any need to resort to lawsuit to compel the mortgagor to convey title.
They also insured that if the mortgagee died before the mortgage was satisfied, the mortgaged
property was not subject to dower and forced-share rights.163 Pastorius provided forms for such
simple mortgages, drawing upon forms that appeared in the Young Clerk's Tutor and Young
Secretaries Guide.164 Perhaps the simplest form of mortgage at English law was a sale of land
through installments, with the grantor (mortgagee) retaining title until the last payment was
completed. Pastorius included such a form.165
162
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 239/2d (long-term lease mortgage), 283 (same) (printed in
Appendix III, Forms A-2, A-19). See Tutor, supra note 34, at 75-77 (99 year lease mortgage);
Young Clerk's Guide, supra note 34, at 140-45 (99 year lease mortgage); id. at 146 (covenant to
convey seissen to mortgagee upon mortgagor's default); id. at 148-50 (assignment of lease). See
also Simpson, supra note 156, at 242-43 (describing long-lease mortgage and providing further
examples); 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *158 (describing
advantages of long-lease mortgage and its vagaries); Modern Conveyancer, supra note 153, at
311, 319.
163
See 7 Holdsworth, supra note 160, at 375-76; Simpson, supra note 156, at 242-44.
164
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 283; 239/2d (printed in Appendix III, Forms A-2, A-18);
Tutor, supra note 34, at 75; Secretaries Guide, supra note 34, at 156-57.
165
YCCC, supra note 2, at 250 (Appendix 3, Form A-8).
70
b.
Leases
Leases in the seventeenth century were used most commonly as part of a transfer of
ownership of property and as parts of mortgages. Pastorius also included two leases appropriate
for creating a landlord-tenant relationship. One lease provided for a six year rental of a
plantation. The rent was be paid out of the produce of the land. The landlord, who had already
planted ten acres of grain, was entitled to "one half part of all the wheat, rye and barley, the
produce of the . . . Plantacion yearly during the . . . Term" and "one half of the yearly Increase of
the Stock." The other lease provided for a rental of a house with fixed yearly payments for a
term of seven years. In his Universal Index, Pastorius also refers to another lease in the Young
Clerk's Guide.166
c.
Trusts
Pastorius even included two forms for trusts, which had recently replaced uses as a way
of dividing equitable and legal control over property between two entities. Both trusts were
created to provide a legacy for the Quakers. In one the creator provided that the Dublin
Township Monthly Meeting chose the trustees and that the trustees should always insure that the
Quakers occupied the land granted. It remains somewhat unclear what legal purpose either of the
trusts served in Pennsylvania. The widespread use of wills would seem to serve the same
purpose, by allowing the testator to control the property until death and then pass the remaining
property to the various devisees. The trusts allowed, to a limited extent, more control over the
devise than an outright bequest, as the first trust would insure that the Quakers would continue to
166
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 277 (Appendix III, Form A-15); id. at 277 6th (Appendix III,
Form A-15); id. at 366 (referring to Young Clerk's Guide, supra note 34, 335, 54, 221); id. at
Index Supplement (referring to Young Clerk's Guide, supra note 34, at 66, 113, 205).
71
receive equitable use of the land, while a mere defeasible estate granted to the Quakers would
allow the property to return to the grantor's heirs, who might not be Quakers, or to escheat to the
state. Like the lease and release, Pastorius seems to have included the forms because they were
in use, rather than because they were indispensable.167
d.
Gifts
Quaker families were particularly generous with their children. They frequently gave
outright gifts of land upon marriage, a practice not followed in Puritan New England. The ability
to make gifts of land during life, therefore, took on a particularly important role in Quaker
Pennsylvania.168 Pastorius was perhaps recognizing the important of inter vivos transfers or
perhaps simply relying upon forms available to him in the Secretaries Guide. The form in the
Collection followed closely the form in the Secretaries Guide, as did the several paragraphs
discussing "things to be considered" in deeds of gift following Pastorius' deed. Pastorius
recognized the importance of deeds of gifts to Quaker families by altering the deed so that it was
a grant within a family, rather than among friends as in the Secretaries Guide, and by mentioning
in the consideration clause of the grant the grantor's family.169
167
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 249 2d (Appendix III, form A-8); Simpson, supra note 156, at
202-07.
168
See Barry Levy, Quakers and the American Family chap. 4, esp. 144-51 (1988) (finding
high rate of inter vivos transfers of land); Philip Greven, Four Generations (1977) (surveying
transfer of property among families in Andover Massachusetts during the eighteenth century and
finding that land was infrequently granted inter vivos).
169
YCCC, supra note 2, at 246 (citing Secretaries Guide 121, 122). Thus, Pastorius' deed
granted land "in consideration of the Love & good will & affection . . . which I have & do bear
towards my loving BB and for his & his children their better & more comfortable subsistence in
the world" and in further consideration of some unspecified sum of money. Id. The other deeds
provided in the Collection could, of course, also be used to convey property inter vivos to family
72
e.
Wills
As with inter vivos gifts, the Quakers behaved differently from the New England Puritans
in their devises on death. Quakers distributed property to a wider range of family members and
friends than did those in New England. The Collection included several forms for wills. The
first will, based loosely on precedents from the Clerk's Tutor and the Secretaries Guide provided
for distribution of property among several devisees, with payments of debts by the executor and
grants of money to other devisees. Although lengthy, the will was not especially complicated
when compared to the wills appearing in some English books that provided for family
settlements. Once again the Pennsylvanians benefited from their relatively simple real property
law.170
Another was apparently based on the 1699 will of John Dumpling of Philadelphia.
Dumpling gave his wife a life estate in his property, with the provision that if she remarried, she
would receive half of his estate and the remainder would go in equal parts to his brother and
sister, who resided in Holland. Several clauses providing for executors followed the will.
Another will, only a paragraph long, devised all the property to the testator's spouse. Pastorius
also included several notes on wills, including the requirement of three witnesses and the
requirement that specific legacies require enumeration in the will.171
members.
170
YCCC, supra note 2, at 230-34 (citing Clerk's Tutor, supra note 34, at 87; Secretaries
Guide, supra note 34, at 119).
171
YCCC, supra note 2, at 230-31 252 (referring to Secretaries Guide, supra note 34, at 119).
See also Swinburn's Wills (London, 1677), which was in Pennsylvania by the 1720s. See Wolf,
supra note 127, at 183.
73
--One is left with the impression that early Pennsylvania land law mirrored in important
ways the procedures of English law. Thus, the forms for land transactions were largely similar.
Nevertheless, the complicated aspects, such as uses, were rare in Pennsylvania. Thus,
Pennsylvanians drew upon their English heritage to settle their ownership rights. At the same
time, they avoided the complications of English land law, which caused the treatises written on
English conveyancing to run to several hundred pages. There was not much need for extensive
discussion of how lands were conveyed, or forms for settlements of uses, nor for covenants to
stand seized to uses. Fines were likewise unimportant and recoveries were relatively
unimportant.172 Pastorius' real property forms, therefore, helped to make land transfers easier,
thus complying with the Biblical commands to make law and justice accessible. In that process,
he was part of a larger movement to reform property law by simplifying the procedure for
transferring land and by eliminating feudal vestiges of property law such as uses and settlements.
2.
Contracts
In keeping with the vigorous market economy existing in Pennsylvania, Pastorius
included a substantial number of forms for contracts in the Collection. By contract, Pastorius
meant "the mutal consent of the Parties concerned by a formal Deed in writing, whereby they
promise to give or do somewhat in such sort as they have concluded amongst themselves."173
172
See Ars Clericus, supra note 153; Modern Conveyancer, supra note 153. Young Clerks
Tutor, supra note 34, at 92-104 (forms for fines, none of which are included in Pastorius'
Collection).
173
YCCC, supra note 2, at 210. Several fine studies examine the importance of the economy
in Pennsylvania's early development. See, e.g., Thomas Doerflinger, A Virgous Spirit of
Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia (1986); Nash,
74
The types of forms fall into several broad categories: obligatory paper, such as bills, notes, and
bonds, contracts for sales of goods and services, such as indentures for apprentices and
agreements to make bricks or construct buildings, and paper recognizing the fulfillment of
obligations, such as receipts, recognizances and releases.
a.
Bills, Notes, and Bonds
Most of the commercial transaction forms in the Collection are bills, bonds, or notes.
Pastorius, in the midst of his bills, includes several paragraphs, based on the Young Clerk's Tutor
that a "Bill or Obligation is a Deed in Writing, and the nature thereof is to bind one (or more) to
another to pay a sum of money, or to give, do and perform something. The difference betwixt
them is that when it is in English, they call it a Bill; but when it is in Latin, a Bond or
Obligation."174
Several of the bills served merely to acknowledge a debt and bind the signer to pay the
debt. Such bills were were called unconditional. Thus, one would on receiving a loan or a sum
of money, sign a simple bill promising to pay back the money at a specified time.175 Such simple
bills were "rarely sealed," Pastorius observed, apparently based on a statement in the Young
Secretaries Guide.176 Several letters of credit, including one in Dutch, appear in the Collection.
supra note 137; Schweitzer, supra note 158. Professor Nash's Urban Crucible (1979) explores
the economy of Philadelphia.
174
YCCC, supra note 2, at 210 (quoting Young Clerks Tutor, supra note 34, at 2).
175
Id. at 211 (single bill without penalty and bill of debt, printed in Appendix III, Forms B-7,
B-8).
176
Id. at 211; Secretaries Guide, 34, at 126 (noting that "Bills without Penalties are rarely
Sealed.").
Pastorius closely follows the organization of the Secretaries Guide in his section on bills.
75
They supplemented the loans made available through the bills in the Collection by providing for
a loan on the signer's account.177 Pastorius also discusses inland and foreign bills of exchange,
terms apparently taken from Dutch and German commerical law. Inland bills of exchange, he
explains, are "such as are drawn and payable in the same Country, which is usually either at sight
or some days after. And if a bill be drawn to be payable at sight, it is only payable 3 days after
accepter for . . . Inland bills are never protested, but returned by the first opportunity." Foreign
bills, he contrasted, are payable in another country, several months afterwards.178
Other bills were conditional; they contained both an obligation, which was present in the
non-penal bills, as well as a condition. If the obligor completed the condition, then the bill was
void. They bound one "to give, do and perform something," as Pastorius said. Pastorius
explained that a condition "is such an agreement of both parties . . . as stayed . . . the effect
thereof . . . until the Condition happen to be fulfilled or relapsed, so that by the non-performance
or not doing thereof the Parties to the Condition shall receive Prejudice and loss and by
performance Commodity and advantage."179 One example of the conditional bill is the common
money bond, which appeared in both the Collection and in several books that Pastorius drew
upon. In the common money bond, the debtor agreed to pay a sum of money--commonly twice
The Guide prints bills in the following order: short note acknowledging money due, single bill
without a penalty, single penal bill, explanation of bills and bonds, bond from one party to
another; conditional bonds involving multiple parties, bill of sale. Id., at 125-39.
177
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 220 (Appendix III, Form B-12).
178
Id. at 219 (foreign bill of exchange, Apprendix III, Form B-11).
179
Id. at 212, 2d. Pastorius further explained that a condition was "a Rule, Law or Bridle
annex[ed] to a Bond, staying and suspending the same until a certain time." Id.
76
the sum owing. But the bond included a condition that if the debtor paid the money owed by a
certain time, the bond was void. The Young Secretaries Guide contained a bond from James
Rainskor for £100 payable to John Wattin. The bond has a condition that if Rainskor paid
Wattin £50 by the following September 1, then the "present Obligation to be void and of none
effect."180 The Collection, similarly, used bonds to insure performance of land sale contracts.181
Conditional bonds were, through the later part of the seventeenth century, the "basic
contractual institution" of English law. It was through conditional bonds, which offered a
flexibility in contracting, that "important agreements were made actionable." The conditional
bond facilitated not only the collection of debts, but more sophisticated executory contracts as
well. The contracts for services in the Collection were penal bonds. The bonds had a condition
that the obligor complete the service in order to avoid liability on the bond. One such executory
contract in the Collection related to constructing a house. It joined the usual obligation of a penal
bond with the condition that if the obligor constructed "one good and substantial new frame" then
the bond was void.182 One of the best examples of penal bonds appearing in the Collection was
arbitration bonds. The Collection provided several forms for binding parties to the decisions of
180
Secretarties Guide, supra note 34, at 124-25; YCCC, supra note 2, at 214; A. W. Brian
Simpson, A History of the Common Law of Contract 90-91 (2nd. ed. 1987); James S. Rogers,
The Early History of the Law of Bills and Notes chap. 5 (1995) (discussing bills of exchange);
John H. Baker & S.F.C. Milsom, Sources of English Legal History 259-61 (1986).
181
See, e.g., YCCC, supra note 2, at 212, 2d, 277/6th; supra III.B.1.a. (discussing mortages).
Cf. id. at 283 (deed of defeasance used in mortgage, allowing mortagor to reclaim title to
property upon completion of payments).
182
Simpson, supra note 180, at 90 (describing conditional bonds); YCCC, supra note 2, at
216 (condition "for the building and setting up a Frame of a house" based on Young Clerk's
Guide, supra note 34, at 312, and refering to obligation on page 213). The Young Clerk's Guide
had entries for numerous conditions. See Clerk's Guide, supra note 34, at 288-318.
77
umpires. The parties executed penal bonds in favor of each other, with the condition that the
bond would be void if they abided by the umpires' decision. The forms mapped closely those
available in the Tutor and Secretaries Guide as well as those in more general treatises.183
The Collection contained an all-purpose bond for executory contracts. It counseled to
first incorporate the general obligation clause of a penal bond, then insert a clause defeating the
obligation when the parties performed the acts "mentioned in certain articles of agreement."
Using the forms Pastorius provided, parties could make their agreements enforceable.184 In one
form, Pastorius provided the articles of agreement for brickmaking. The brickmaker agreed to
spend his entire summer making bricks for the purchaser. Every day that the brickmaker failed to
work, however, he was subject to a penalty of 20 shillings.185
The bills, bonds, and notes are remarkably simlar to those appearing in the formbooks
that Pastorius drew upon, particularly the Young Secretaries Guide. Pastorius' frequent citations
to the formbooks shows his reliance upon them and the importance of those forms. Although
183
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 242, 248 (Appendix III, Forms B-15, B-16); Clerks Tutor,
supra note 34, Clerks Guide, at 289; Secretaries Guide, supra note 34, at 148; Arbitrium
redivivum: Or, the Law of Arbitration (London, 1694). See also Eben Moglen, Searching for the
Transformation, 92 Yale L. J. 135 (1985) (discussing arbitration in colonial New York); Bruce
Mann, Neighbors and Strangers: Law and Community in Early Connecticut 111-13 (1987)
(discussing arbitration in seventeenth-century Connecticut) William Nelson, Dispute and
Conflict Resolution in Plymouth County (1982); J.A. Sharp, 'Such Disputes betwyn Neighbors':
Litigation and Human Relations in Early Modern England, in Disputes and Settlements: Law and
Human Relations in the West 167, 182-83 (John Bossy ed. 1981).
184
The sample articles of agreement in the Collection was open-ended. It provided the form
for binding binding parties to the article of agreement and then left blank the parties' agreement.
YCCC, supra note 2, at 250 (refering to Young Clerks Tutor, supra note 34, at 42, articles of
agreement of lease).
185
YCCC, supra note 2, at 250 (Appendix III-B, Form B-17); 262 (contract to construct a
barn).
78
conditional bonds were becoming disfavored in English law because the Chancery courts were
increasingly refusing to enforce the bonds, because of the penal nature of the bond, they
remained popular in English law books up through the early eighteenth century.186
b.
Indentures and Letters of Attorney
Also important to Pennsylvania's market economy was the ability to arrive at long-term
labor contracts and to have factors act on behalf of principals through letters of attorney. The
Collection provides several examples of indentures for servants and apprentices. Servants were
present in significant numbers from the founding in 1682; they provided, particularly in the
seventeenth century, a significant source of stable labor. The three indentures in the Collection
spell out the expectations of the master and the servant. According to one indenture the master,
who took on a role as a parent for the servant, was responsible for providing "sufficient meat,
drink, apparel, Lodging and washing fitting for an apprentice" and for teaching his "art, trade, or
mastery" to the apprentice. In return, the master expected that the apprentice "keep his lawful
commands, gladly everywhere obey. . . . He shall not comit fornication . . . . At card, tables, dice,
or any other game he shall not play, whereby his sd Master may have damage with his own
goods."187 The Collection also included notices for runaway servants and to transfer servants
from one master to another.188
186
Simpson, supra note 180, at 113. Such a conditional bond is unenforceable under modern
contract law as a penalty. See E. Allan Farnsworth, Contracts 144 (2nd ed. 1990) (citing
Restatement Second of Contracts, sec. 356).
187
YCCC, supra note 2, at 244; see also id. at 248.
188
See id. at 205 (runaway notices); 245 (assignment of servants).
79
Another important category of contracts were letters of attorney. The typical letter
allowed another to collect debts, transfer land, or pay money on behalf of the signer. The
Collection has forms for general powers of attorney, usually given to a family member, but
perhaps most important were the letters authorizing another to sell land. Also significant,
however, were letters that allowed another to contract for services and collect debts. Pastorius
himself held such a letter from the Frankfurt Land Company and included several in the
Collection.189
The letters of attorney appearing in the Collection were based on the forms appearing in
the Young Clerks Guide and in the Young Secretaries Guide. Some letters of attorney were also
used to collect judgments from a debtor. The letter, which was typically joined with a bond,
provided that if the debt was not paid, the debtor gave the creditor power of attorney to confess
judgment in court on behalf of the debtor. Despite the Young Clerks Tutor's inclusion of such a
letter, Pastorius failed to include it in his Collection, although he did cite it.190
c.
Receipts, Recognizances, and Releases
A small but for Pastorius significant number of contract forms related to the completion
of contracts. Thus, he included receipts (also known as recognizances) to acknowledge the
successful completion of obligations under bonds, bills, and notes. Particularly in a legal culture
such as Anglo-America, which relies upon the bill itself for proof, receipts played a crucial role
189
Id. at 226 ("Letter of Attorney to receive Debts and Rents"); 228 ("Letter of Attorney to
receive a Bond Debt with Revok[ation of] a former Power"); 227 (revokation of letter of
attorney, citing Young Secretary's Guide, supra note 34, at 140, 146-47); 228 (Letter of attorney
to demand debt).
190
See Young Clerks Tutor, supra note 34, at 29, 32 (cited in YCCC, supra note 2, at 227 2d).
80
in demonstrating a party's obligations. Pastorius, closely following the Secretaries Guide's
organization, included a significant number of receipts and recognizances in the first few pages
of his treatise.191
Pastorius included a wide variety of recognizances, beginning with recognizances for part
payment, proceeding to more than a dozen acquitances in full for such diverse obligations as
produce delivered to a brewer's servant, money received for another's account, rent, and purchase
money.192
3.
Procedure for the County Justice
The Young Country Clerk's Collection has many of the forms needed by a county justice
for the operation of the courts. Much like the popular English books on court operation,
Pastorius provided forms for warrants and summons requiring a defendant to appear, as well as
191
The Young Secretaries Guide begins with acquitances, then proceeds to releases, letters of
attornies, wills, and bills. Young Secretaries Guide, supra note 34, at 118-28. By comparison,
the Collection begins with less than a page of bills, then proceeds to acquitances, bills again,
letters of attornies and wills. One may speculate why the Secretaries Guide began with ways of
terminating contractual obligations. Edward Cocker, the Guide's author stated that he included
the acquitances "for the greater safety and security of the Person paying or receiving Moneys."
Perhaps, then, the protection of people completing their contractual obligations appealed to
Pastorius as well, or perhaps he was merely following precedent without any larger design. Id. at
106. It may be significant that the other two primary sources of the Collection did not, however,
begin with recognizances.
192
YCCC, supra note 2, at 206-08. Pastorius drew heavily upon the Young Clerk's Tutor and
the Young Secretaries Guide for his recognizances. He cited the Tutor four times and the Guide
seven times in three pages of the Collection. Id. at 206-08. Additionally, he appears to have
taken one form, “A Discharge of a Bill, the Bill being lost,” from the Tutor without
acknowledgment. Pastorius omitted the Tutor's references to God in the bill. See id. at 208;
Young Clerks Tutor, supra note 34, at 65.
81
recognizances to seize a defendant, warrants to arrest a defendant, and writs for the levying of
fines.193
A county justice could use Pastorius' book to prosecute a criminal defendant, beginning
with the initial summons to appear. Once the summons was issued, the Collection included three
devices to insure appearance. First, a mittemus to require security from the defendant, then a
supersedeas, which allowed a friend of the defendant to vouch for the defendant by providing
security for the defendant's appearance, and, finally, an arrest when the defendant was unlikely to
appear. For defendants who failed to appear there was a form for hue and cry, ordering sheriffs
in neighboring counties to search for and arrest a defendant. There was little for the prosecution
of a criminal case once it was begun except for a brief form for taking a deposition. Many of the
intermediary forms for criminal prosecution are lacking. Absent also are forms for a grand jury
to make presentments, which was often the first step in a criminal prosecution; perhaps they are
missing because the Collection was not intended to aid jurors. Once defendants were convicted,
there were forms for them to acknowledge their offenses and promise their future good
behavior.194
The Collection included several forms for warrants, a multi-purpose writ. Warrants were
authorizations issued by a justice to a sheriff or a defendant to carry out an order of the justice.
193
See, e.g., William Shepherd, English Court-Keeper's Guide . . . . (London, 1658); John
Kitchen, Jurisdictions (London, 1656). Kitchen’s volume was present in Pennsylvania
contemporaneous with Pastorius. See Guest's Library, supra note 127. See also David Konig,
Introduction, in 1 Plymouth County Court Records 149-73 (1980) (discusing writ pleading in
Massachusetts).
194
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 253.
82
The warrants could require a defendant to appear before the court,195 or it could order a defendant
to pay a fine.196
Also important for the Justices were recognizances, acknowledgments made before a
justice of money owed to another. The recognizances, which were enforceable as a judgment,
could only be made before a justice. They were most often used to promise good behavior, as
with a man suspected of assault and battery, who was allowed to give a recognizance promising
his future good behavior or suffer forfeiture of his bond.197 Thus, like releases, acquittances, and
arbitration bonds, Pastorius included recognizances as yet another means for terminating
disputes.
Noticeably absent from the Collection, however, were forms for proceeding by civil suit.
There were ample forms for arbitration, to bind parties to the decisions of the umpires, and forms
for the umpires to use so that their decisions would be enforced. They were drawn from the
Young Clerks Tutor as well as Quaker practices in Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, there is little in
195
See id. at 254; Chamberlain, supra note 34, at 439. The Justice's authority to command
appearances was apparently limited to cases in which there was an indictment or complaint. But
Pennsylvanians disputed the point bitterly in the late seventeenth century when a justice alligned
with one faction in the legislature arrested the leaders of the other faction. See Provincial
Council to William Penn, 3 PWP, supra note 72, at 515; 1 Pennsylvania Archives 8th ser., 107
(1931).
196
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 257 ("A Warrant to levy money forfeited by Ale house
haunters," Appendix III, Form C-8). For further discussion of powers of justices' warrants, see
Chamberlain, supra note 34, at 438-41.
197
See William Shephard, The Justice of Peace: His Clerks Cabinet 89-99 (London, 1660)
(forms for recognizances); Chamberlain, supra note 34, at 213, 315-18 (discussing recognizances
and warrants). Recognizances for the peace were pledges by a defendant that he would not hurt
another, on pain of forfeit of his bond. Warrants, however, were issued by justices commanding
a sherrif to arrest.
83
the way of forms for initiating and prosecuting a civil suit beyond a summons commanding the
defendant to appear in court.198 There is a writ to recover seissen, one to replevy goods, and
several references to the Young Secretaries Guide for civil forms. One reference was for a lease
of ejectment "to eject a person out of Possession of Land"; another was for a warrant for an
attorney to confess judgment in court.199 The lack of civil forms may be attibuted to the
availabity of the forms in the statutes of Pennsylvania, or to the failure of the lawbooks upon
which Pastorius drew to include civil forms. None of his three prime sources had many forms
for civil suits; neither did the other practical treatises in Pastorius' library.200 Nevertheless,
Pastorius was intimately familiar with civil practice from his service as a justice and clerk in
Philadelphia County and from his own background as a lawyer and litigant, and he did not
hestitate to add forms for criminal prosecution. One suspects, therefore, that Pastorius' failure to
include more forms for civil litigants--as well as the selective inclusion of forms for criminal
prosecution--may derive from his opposition to the use of courts for settling civil disputes.
198
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 253 (In jus vocato, Appendix III, Form C-2).
199
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 317 (writ to recover seissen, Appendix III, Form A-24); 227,
2d (citing Young Secretaries Guide, supra note 34, at 146-47). See also Young Clerks Tutor,
supra note 34, at 29-33 (warrants of attorney to confess judgment).
200
The statutes of Pennsylvania prescribed the form for the standard civil pleadings. See 1
Statutes at Law, supra note 70; supra note 147 (discussing statutory form for land transactions).
The laws were posted in every county and were read yearly to the court. Thus, Pennsylvanians
had ample opportunity to learn the fundamentals of civil procedure. The systemization of
Pennsylvania civil procedure, by prescribing the formet through statute, was an important part of
the reform of complicated English law. It was a product of Quaker beliefs that the law should be
accessible. Veall, supra note 77 (discussing codification movement); supra II.A.1 (discussing
ideas of Fox and Pastorius regarding Justice).
84
There were other important forms for those appearing before county justices for nonadversarial matters, such as petitions for special privileges. The Collection has petitions for land,
for roads, and for licenses to operate taverns. Granting land was one of the most important
functions of the early Pennsylvania courts and a sample petition for land was one of the most
needed forms of any appearing in the Collection; roads were likewise crucial in connecting the
lands to the commerical and cultural center of Philadelphia and thus making the settled land
accessible and, therefore, more valuable. Regulation of ale-houses occupied substantial attention
of justices, both in granting licenses for operation and in punishing excessively disruptive
behavior in ale-houses.201
--Some of the forms were important for religious and social reasons, but were less
important in commercial relations. They included the contracts of marriage, letters of reference
to Quaker meetings, and general letters, which were drawn from the Young Secretaries Guide.
Together with the strictly legal forms, the other forms help to compose a well-rounded collection
of forms that might be of use to a person without access to other legal and business guides.
V
Connections
201
See YCCC, supra note 2, at 268 (petition for road, Appendix C-12); 271 (petition for
ordinary, Appendix C-14); 257 (levy of fine for operator, Appendix C-8); William Penn to
Justice of Philadelphia, 5 Mirco, supra note 54, at 244 (requesting that justices chagre grand jury
on importance of discipling ordinaries).
See John Flexer Walzer, Transportation in the Philadelphia Trading Area, 1740-1755 (Ph.D.
diss., University of Wisconsin, 1968) (intriguing study of role of roads in economic
development).
85
The predominance of forms and writs in Pastorius' treatise is representative of much of
English legal literature of the time period.202 The three treatises that Pastorius primarily drew
upon and many of the law books known to be in Pennsylvania by 1710 concentrated on
procedure. It is through writs that one can determine the state of the law. The Young Country
Clerk's collection is thus representative of a world in which substantive rights were heavily
dependent upon procedure and in which the proper procedure had to be followed, or substantive
rights were lost.203 It is also representative of a world in which writs conferred power to hear and
decide cases.204
202
See John H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History chap. 4 (3d ed. 1990). It is
also similar to notebooks of pleadings kept by lawyers in early America. See 1 Legal Papers of
Alexander Hamilton 37-166 (Julius Goebel ed. 1964); 1 Legal Papers of John Adams 26-86 (L.
Kinvin Wroth & Hiller B. Zobel eds. 1966). But it remains quite different from more theoretical
treatises such as Blackstone's, Coke's, and even from previous treatises that collected forms, such
as Glanville. See A. W. Brian Simpson, The Rise and Fall of the Legal Treatise: Legal Principles
and the Form of Legal Literature, 48 U. Chi. L. Rev. 632, 633-50 (1985). See also Warren
Billings, English Legal Literature as a Source of Law and Legal Practice for Seventeenth-Century
Virginia, 87 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 403-16 (1979) (arguing that early
Virginia courts failed to follow English procedure); John A. Conley, Doing it by the Book:
Justice of the Peace Manuals and English Law in Eighteenth Century America, 6 Journal of
Legal History, 257-98 (1985) (assessing state of American legal literature in the eighteenth
century).
203
See Exemplum sine Exemplo, supra note 48 (Pastorius laments legal maneuvering that
subverted just result). It is common for English legal historians to note the importance of
procedure. It may be that Pastorius was attempting to provide early Pennsylvanians with all the
forms that they needed, so that rights turned upon justice rather than technical legal wording.
The treatise, for instance, contains simple writs, contracts, and forms for land transactions, not
the complicated writs of John Herne's Pleader, nor the more complicated issues raised in
important works in common and civil law such the Coke's Institutes or Cowell's Institutes. One
suspects that Pastorius' concern for love and peaceful settlement of cases motivated his treatise.
There are, for example, few forms for civil suits and none for defamation.
204
See Baker, supra note 202, chap. 4. Thus, a court could not operate until its justices
received their commissions from William Penn or his agents. See 2 Courts of Sussex County
670, 692-93 (Craig W. Horle ed. 1991) (court discusses whether their commissions are valid);
86
Perhaps most significantly for historians of American law, the Collection confirms the
picture that early American law was sophisticated and that it followed closely English procedure.
Since the early 1930s, it has become increasingly clear that seventeenth-century American law
followed closely the local law of England.205 Given the small number of studies of procedure in
England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Pastorius' treatise is particularly
valuable in confirming the picture of American law's heavy reliance upon English treatises and
English procedure. The Collection shows that seventeenth-century Americans self-consciously
drew upon English law and followed English precedents. Some participants in the legal system
may have been drawing upon their memory of proceedings in England, having brought their
culture along with them as part of their baggage when crossing the Atlantic.206 Pastorius was
Brophy, supra note ? (discussing importance of symbols of power in early Pennsylvania courts).
Moreover, when litigants failed to produce the proper writs at the proper time, they lost their
substantive rights. See generally Shepherd, supra note 52 (study of administrative procedure in
early Pennsylvania discussing importance of writs in authorizing courts to sit).
205
See, e.g., Goebel, supra note 77; William Smith, Justice in Colonial Massachusetts: The
Pynchon Court Record (1960). Cf. Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Turning Points and the Relevance
of Colonial Legal History, 50 William & Mary Q. 7, 9-12 (1993) (suggesting that in the period
1680-1720 American law changed from communal to more modern, individual-oriented law);
Hoffer, supra note 143, at 66 (suggesting that early Massachusetts judges relied upon solid
common sense). Other historians have found a significant change in American law and
particularly procedure in the years surrounding the American Revolution. See William Nelson,
The Americanization of the Common Law chap. 5 (1975). The findings here that early American
law was complex and modeled on English law are consistent with Nelson's findings that the law
changed in the wake of the Revolution.
206
See generally Ross, supra note 13, at 36-38 (suggesting the need to study "patterns of legal
knowledge and legal memory"); Allen, supra 12 (demonstrating that New England settlers
distributed property in the same ways that they had in England); David Hackett Fischer, Albion's
Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989) (showing how folk habits in America followed
habits established in Europe).
With Pastorius' treatise we have a clear picture of the the legal system of early
Pennsylvania. Hence, we should be able to answer, in a detailed fashion, the question posed by
87
drawing directly out of law books, and it is becoming increasingly clear that other
Pennsylvanians relied upon legal treatises as well. For those participants in the early American
legal system, the law as it was in England--as well as the Bible--provided a firm guide.
Despite the importance of procedure, Quakers contributed to the idea that law included an
element of substantive justice and Pastorius followed them in that area. In the ample Quaker
writings on the importance of following just laws, from George Fox's pleas to abolish the death
penalty for property crimes to Thomas Ellwood's pleas for narrow construction of criminal laws
to William Penn's pleas for revival of ancient common law powers of the jury, Quakers sought to
infuse a moral basis in the law. In Pennsylvania, grand jury charges suggested the need to follow
the commands of the governors and maintain peace and security.207 Writing at the time that
English subjects were aware of the abuses that people suffered because of the law and aware of
the difficulties that arose when law failed to function, Penn, Pastorius and a host of English
lawyers wanted to incorporate ideas of fairness.
Those general ideas about justice coalesced in Pennsylvania. They led to simple, clear
statements of the criminal laws, broad powers in the jury and selection of jurors from wide
segments of the population. It also resulted in relatively simple real property and contract law
Stanley Katz more than a decade ago: how did early American law operate. See Stanley Katz,
The Problem of a Colonial Legal History, in Colonial British America: New Histories in the
Early Modern Era 457, 476 (Jack Greene & J.R. Pole eds. 1984). And from there we can more to
a further elaboration of Zechariah Chaffee's thesis that American law developed from English
law and the settlers' social beliefs. See Zechariah Chaffee, Colonial Courts and the Common
Law, 68 Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Proceedings 132-59 (1952). Based on Pastorius' treatise, it
appears that English law acounts for a substantial amount of early Pennsylvania law.
207
See James Logan, Charge Delivered from the Bench to the Grand Jury (Philadelphia,
1723). Cf. James Logan, (Philadelphia, 1736); Samuel Jennings, A State of the Case 45
(London, 1693) (urging respect for magistracy).
88
and in the simplification of court procedure. In Pennsylvania, unlike England, anyone could
plead their cause in court, using the basic forms provided for by statute. Pastorius' treatise seems
to meet quite well the Quaker needs for justice. It provided a simple way of obtaining the forms
that were necessary for proper operation of the courts and for orderly transfer of property and
formation of contracts.
The treatise, significantly, contains only one form for a private suit--a writ to recover
seisin. In that way, it apparently conforms to Pastorius' belief that lawsuits should be minimized,
because it fails to give the readers the means by which to prosecute lawsuits. Pastorius believed,
with prominent Quakers in Pennsylvania, that "it was never against our principles to be
concerned with outward government" and that "Quakers never destroy the relationship between
prince and people;" therefore, Quakers could sue in the courts. He, nevertheless, wanted to limit
the suits.208 Thus, the Collection concentrates its energies on providing readers with the means of
transferring land and making contracts properly and providing the courts with the proper means
for "execut[ing] a wrath upon evil Doers," so that good people "may lead a quiet and peaceable
life in all goodness and honesty."209
The precedents in the Young Country Clerk's Collection added some form to the
generalizations that Pastorius wrote on his law books and that he scattered in the Bee Hive. The
prescription of the Golden Rule to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," a
seemingly ubiquitous phrase in Pastorius' writings as well as his contemporaries', proved hard to
208
Law Entry, Bee Hive, supra note 1; supra notes 123-124 (discussing controversy over
suits).
209
Pastorius, New Primmer, supra note 17, at 34.
89
put into practice. By providing simple, accessible forms Pastorius apparently intended to make
the law itself more amenable to his maxims. He did not attempt to rewrite the law from the
ground up--not even the Quakers who had suffered imprisonment and sometimes death in
England wanted the abolition of the legal system. Instead, he offered a book that made law
accessible--and facilitated commercial transactions as well as individual wishes. Lay people, not
just those who had spent thirty years mastering the "common" law,210 could use the Collection to
transfer land, form a partnership, sell their crops, cattle, and manufactures, hire workers, settle
their disputes with an arbitrator, and, when the time came devise their property to their family.
Once the appropriate legal forms were available, the need to resort to law suits was itself
reduced.
Seventeenth-century Pennsylvanians were about as likely to resort to formal court
proceedings as anyone in early America, however.211 Despite the institution of arbitration and
despite exhortations such as William Penn's to "put an end to the restless heats and jars," and
James Logan's admonition to a litigant that "though thy Purse should bleed as long as thou canst
bear it to support thy Lawyers, whose livelihood depends upon Quarrels of Neighbors . . . [thy]
will be left to bear the whole burden thy self and to pay a heavy reconing,"212 Pennsylvanians
210
See Penn's Ancient Liberties, supra note 34, at 31 (arguing that common law implies that
law is understandable by lay people, not only those who have spent thirty years studying it).
211
See Offutt, supra note 143 (describing litigiousness of early Pennsylvanians); Brophy,
supra note 143 (comparing litigation rate in Sussex County to that of other parts of British
America).
212
Penn to Provincial Council, Nov. 11, 1690, 3 PWP, supra note 72, at 288; James Logan,
Letter to Mouns Justis (Philadelphia, 1722) Evans 3711. See also William Penn, The
Fundamental Constitutions of Pennsylvania, 2 PWP supra note 72, at 141, 148 ("lawsuits . . .
have so lamentably consumed the estates of many families in divers nations, as well as sown and
90
remained contentious. As the eighteenth century progressed, American law--and American
society in general--became increasingly complex, which further hindered the attainment of
Pastorius' vision of a peaceful, howling wilderness.213
--Pastorius, living in the marchland of European settlement, brought extensive knowledge
of civil law and pietism to Pennsylvania. One can imagine him sitting among more than 250
books in Germantown, quietly recording his thoughts on nature and religion in his manuscripts
and then going off to tend his garden and teach school. In the interim he carefully transcribed
several hundred pages of forms and precedents in order to help bring about the godly, peaceful
land that he had sought to find in his youth. And so, having come to America to partake of a
peaceful society, Pastorius recast English law to combine elements of the corrupt European world
he left with his religious vision. In law his legacy is a treatise that is traditional in form and both
traditional and innovative in substance and purpose. Pastorius himself acknowledged the role of
his treatise in channeling human thought into legal form on the title page of the Collection with
the phrase "Ingenium est Fateri per quos profeceris"--natural ability is improved through this
source.
fixed perpetual hatred between neighbors and near kindred.").
213
Professor Offutt has recently presented an alternative vision of the litigiousness of early Pennsylvania,
suggesting that Quaker justices facilitated the attainment of harmonious society by deciding cases fairly. In turn,
Offutt believes, the litigants then brought their cases to the justices. Litigation, thus, is part of a well-functioning
society. Offutt, Of Good Laws; see also Konig. W hile willness of litigants to submit their disputes to Quakerdominated courts shows confidence in the decision-makers, it also shows at least a partial breakdown of the ability of
the litigants to peacefully resolve disputes on their own.
91